THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


THE  EEFOKMATION 


THE    REFORMATION 


BY 


GEORGE  PARK   FISHER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

EMERITUS   PROFESSOR    OF   ECCLESIASTICAL    HI8TORT 
IN   TALE   UNIVERSITY 


NEW  AND  REVISED  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1906 


Copyright,  1873, 
Bt  8CEIBNEE,  ARMSTRONG,  AND  COMPANY. 

COPTBIGHT,    1906, 

By  CHARLES  SCEIBNEE'S  SONS. 


.'.'..  *•  .  i,.*l  -t.t :;;  ;.V  •»*.*  •  • 


6 


DEDICATION   OF  THE  EIKST  EDITION; 

TO 

THEODORE  DWIGHT  WOOLSEY 

A    FRIEND   AND   EXAMPLE   OF   ALL    GOOD    LEARNING 
THIS    WORK    IS    INSCRIBED 
"=1-  AS  A   TOKEN   OF   RESPECT   AND   AFFECTION 

^  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


2 

O  IN  THIS    NEW  EDITION 

^  THE   AUTHOR   WOULD   COUPLE   WITH    THE    NAME    OF   WOOLSET 

O 

2  THAT  OF  ANOTHER  RIPE  SCHOLAR  AND  DEAR  FRIEND 

THE  LATE 

EPHRAIM  WHITMAN  GURNEY 

THEN   PROFESSOR   OF   HISTORY    IN    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 
WHO    LENT   HIS    AID    IN   THE    REVISAL   OF 
C3  THE    PROOF    SHEETS    OF    THE 

FIRST    EDITION 


43gC05 


PKEFACE 

This  work  had  its  origin  in  a  course  of  lectures  which  were 
given  at  the  Lowell  Institute  early  in  the  spring  of  1871.  When 
I  engaged  to  prepare  those  lectures,  the  subject  was  not  new 
to  me;  and  the  interval  prior  to  the  issue  of  them  was  devoted 
to  studies  in  the  same  field,  the  results  of  which  were  incor- 
porated in  the  volume.  It  has  appeared  to  me  practicable  to 
present  to  intelligent  and  educated  readers,  within  the  compass 
of  the  present  volume,  the  means  of  acquainting  themselves  with 
the  origin  and  nature,  the  principal  facts  and  characters,  of  the 
Reformation;  while  at  the  same  time,  through  notes  and  refer- 
ences, the  historical  student  should  be  guided  to  further  re- 
searches on  the  various  topics  which  are  brought  under  his 
notice.  There  are  two  features  in  the  plan  of  the  present  work 
to  which  it  may  not  be  unseemly  to  call  attention.  With  the 
religious  and  theological  side  of  the  history  of  the  period,  I  have 
endeavored  to  interweave  and  to  set  in  their  true  relation  the 
political,  secular,  and  more  general  elements,  which  had  so  pow- 
erful an  influence  in  determining  the  course  of  events.  The  at- 
tempt has  also  been  made  to  elucidate  briefly,  but  sufficiently, 
points  pertaining  to  the  history  of  theological  doctrine,  an 
understanding  of  which  is  pecuHarly  essential  in  the  study  of 
this  period  of  history. 

Tlie  authorities  on  which  I  have  chiefly  depended  are  in- 
dicated in  the  marginal  references.  The  first  place  belongs  to 
the  writings,  and  especially  to  the  correspondence,  of  the  Re- 
formers themselves.  The  letters  of  Luther,  Melancthon,  Zwingli, 
Calvin;  the  correspondence  of  the  English  with  the  Helvetic 
Reformers  during  the  reigns  of  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI.,  and 
EUzabeth;  the  correspondence  of  Reformers  in  the  French- 
speaking  lands,  in  the  collection  of  M.  Herminjard,  afford 
the  most  vivid  as  well  as  correct  impression  of  the  transactions 
in  which  their  authors  bore  a  leading  part.     Works  Uke  the 


viii  PREFACE 

"Correspondence  of  Philip  II.,"  which  M.  Gachard  —  among 
his  other  valuable  contributions  —  has  published  from  the  ar- 
chives of  Simancas,  have  cast  much  new  light  on  another  side 
of  the  history  of  this  era.  Of  the  more  recent  historians,  there 
are  two  of  whom  I  am  prompted  to  make  special  mention 
in  this  place.  The  first  is  Ranke,  whose  admirable  series  of 
works  on  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  have  been 
constantly  in  my  hands.  The  mingling  of  general  views  with 
apposite  and  characteristic  facts,  lent  to  the  historical  pro- 
ductions of  this  truly  illustrious  writer  a  peculiar  charm.  The 
other  historian  is  Gieseler,  who  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree 
the  genius  for  accuracy,  which  Gibbon  ascribed  to  Tillemont, 
and  whose  investigations,  though  extensive  and  profound  upon 
every  period  of  Church  History,  are  nowhere  more  instructive 
than  upon  the  period  of  the  Reformation.  It  must  be  a  matter 
of  sincere  regret  to  all  scholars  that  Neander  did  not  Uve  to 
carry  forward  his  great  work,  the  counterpart  of  Gieseler,  into 
this  period.  His  posthumous  History  of  Doctrine  is  quite 
brief  in  its  treatment  of  the  Protestant  movement,  but  is  not 
wanting  in  striking  suggestions.  Perhaps  I  should  add  to  this 
short  catalogue,  the  "Histoire  de  France"  of  Henri  Martin, 
which  appears  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  of  the 
comprehensive  works  on  the  history  of  that  country. 

The  advantages  received  by  a  historical  student  from  the 
writings  of  others,  he  may  be  so  fairly  conscious  of  as  to  be 
able  to  enumerate  them.  But  one's  obligation  to  the  quick- 
ening influence  and  the  scholarly  talents  of  the  associates  with 
whom  he  is  personally  conversant  are  not  subject  to  so  facile 
a  reckoning.  In  such  a  relation  one  may  be  aware,  in  some 
cases,  of  an  unpayable  indebtedness.  It  is  the  privilege  of  the 
present  writer  to  acknowledge  the  debt  which  he  owes  to 
friends  of  this  class  whose  intimacy  he  has  been  permitted 
to  prize. 

There  is  one  explanation  further  which  I  am  anxious  to  make 
respecting  the  design  of  this  book.  It  is  intended  in  no  sense 
as  a  polemical  work.  It  has  not  entered  into  my  thoughts  to 
inculcate  the  creed  of  Protestantism,  or  to  propagate  any  type 
of  Christian  doctrine;  much  less  to  kindle  animosity  against 
the  Church  of  Rome.  Very  serious  as  the  points  of  difference 
are  which  separate  the  body  of  Protestants  from  the  body  of 


PREFACE  ix 

Roman  Catholics,  the  points  on  which  they  agree  outweigh  in 
importance  the  points  on  which  they  differ.  Whoever  sup- 
poses that  the  Reformers  were  exempt  from  grave  faults  and 
infirmities,  must  either  be  ignorant  of  their  history,  or  have 
studied  it  under  the  influence  of  a  partisan  bias.  Impartiality, 
however,  is  not  indifference;  and  a  frigid  and  carping  spirit, 
that  chills  the  natural  outflow  of  a  just  admiration,  may,  equally 
with  the  spirit  of  hero-worship,  hinder  one  from  arriving  at  the 
real  truth,  as  well  as  the  best  lessons  of  history. 

Should  this  volume  be  used  in  the  class-room,  it  may  be 
suggested  to  teachers  that  frequent  reference  should  be  made 
to  the  Chronological  Table  in  the  Appendix,  where  contempo- 
raneous events  in  the  different  countries  are  grouped  together. 
Dates  are  frequently  set  down  in  the  text,  but  are  given  more 
fully  in  the  Table  of  Contents.  In  the  List  of  Works,  which 
follows  the  Chronological  Table,  some  of  the  books  to  which 
the  more  advanced  student  would  naturally  resort  are  briefly 
characterized. 

In  two  or  three  places  only,  in  this  volume,  the  term  "  con- 
substantiation "  is  applied  to  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  the 
Eucharist;  but  the  term  is  defined  (p.  129)  as  the  co-presence  of 
two  substances,  —  a  sense  in  which  it  is  allowed  by  the  best 
Lutheran  theologians.  The  attentive  reader  of  the  last  chapter 
will  observe  that  the  effects  which  are  there  ascribed  to  the 
Reformation,  are  not  ascribed  to  the  dogmatic  system  of  Prot- 
estantism exclusively,  but  to  the  Protestant  religion,  taken 
comprehensively.  It  is  the  genius  and  spirit  of  Protestantism, 
as  seen  in  the  long  processes  of  history,  which  are  there  re- 
ferred to.  The  place  and  the  importance  of  the  Renaissance 
are  illustrated  in  various  parts  of  the  volume,  especially  in  the 
third  chapter.  The  influence  of  the  Renaissance  on  modern 
culture  is  not  undervalued  in  this  work ;  nor  is  the  Renaissance 
confounded  with  the  religious  Reform.  There  is  one  other 
point  which  may  deserve  a  word  of  remark.  The  Church  of 
the  Middle  Ages  is  not  considered  "a  mitigated  evil,"  but  an 
incalculable  benefit  to  society.  What  is  said  of  the  Papacy 
should  not  be  understood  of  the  Church,  —  the  organized, 
collective  influence  of  Christianity.  But  even  the  Papacy,  as 
is  shown,  was,  in  the  mediaeval  period,  in  many  particulars, 
a  beneficent  institution. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 


INTRODUCTION  :  THE  GENERAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


VFour  principal  events  of  modern  history 

Long  historical  preparation  of  these  events 

Agency  of  individuals  not  to  be  undervalued 

Theories  in  respect  to  the  Reformation 

An  astrological  hypothesis  ..... 

Theory  that  it  was  a  quarrel  of  monastic  orders 

That  it  was  an  academical  dispute 

That  it  was  a  new  phase  of  the  old  conflict  of  Popes  and  Emperors 

That  it  was  an  insurrection  against  authority :  (advanced  by  Guizot) 
*That  it  was  a  transitional  step  towards  Rationalism    . 

Protestantism  alleged  to  foster  infidelity 

Its  fundamental  characteristic     ..... 

The  Reformation  primarily  a  religious  event 

Judaizing  character  of  mediaeval  Christianity:    constant 
the  spiritual  element     ...... 

Protestantism  positive  as  well  as  negative  . 

It  has  an  objective  factor    ...... 

It  practically  asserted  the  right  of  private  judgment  . 

It  was  a  part  of  the  general  progress  of  society    . 
»  General  characteristics  of  the  entire  period . 

Two-fold    aspect   of   the    Reformation  —  religious,    and   political   or 
secular . 

Chronological  limits  of  the  era     .... 


reaction  of 


9 
9 

10 
10 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   RISE   OF  THE   PAPAL   HIERARCHY   AND   ITS    DECLINE   THROUGH   THE    CEN- 
TRALIZATION   OF   NATIONS 


Protestantism  rejected  priestly  authority 11 

The  relation  of  sacerdotal  authority  to  Papal  supremacy     .         .         .11 
The  new  Dispensation  spiritual,  in  contrast  with  the  old      .         .         .12 

Absence  of  a  mediatorial  priesthood 12 

Officers  of  the  primitive  Church 12 

Functions  of  a  priesthood  gradually  associated  with  the  ministry        .       13 

Growth  of  a  hierarchy  .         . 14 

Irenseus  and  TertuUian  make  the  Church  the  door  of  access  to  Christ 

(circa  200) 14 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Causes  of  the  precedence  of  the  See  of  Rome 15 

Acknowledged  in  the  East,  because  Rome  is  the  capital;   claimed  in 

the  West  on  account  of  Peter        .         .         .         .         .         .         .17 

Accession  of  Constantine  (311);    Church  not  merged  in  the  State, 

and  why 17 

Power  of  the  Emperors  over  the  Church 17 

Decline  of  the  Empire  increases  the  authority  of  the  Roman  bishop  17 

Leo,  the  Great  (440-461) 17 

The  Papacy  exalted,  yet  endangered,  by  the  fall  of  the  Western 

Empire  (476) 18 

Spread  of  Arianism  and  Mohammedanism  ......  18 

Fortunate  alliance  of  the  Papacy  with  the  Franks  (750)      ...  18 

Rescue  of  the  Papacy  by  Pepin  and  Charlemagne       ....  19 

Significance  of  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne  (800)    ....  19 

Effect  of  the  fall  of  his  Empire  on  the  Papacy 20 

The  Pseudo-Isidorian  Decretals  (circa  850) .20 

Enforced  by  Nicholas  I.  (858-867) 20 

Anarchy  in  Italy:   the  period  of  pornocracy:   intervention  of  Henry 

III.  (1046) 21 

Hildebrand  (1073-1085)  and  his  reforming  plan:  theory  of  the  Papacy 

and  the  Empire :  their  inevitable  conflict     .....  21 

Advantages  of  the  Papacy  in  this  conflict 22 

Victory  of  the  Popes;  Henry  IV.,  the  Worms  Concordat  (1122) ;  Alex- 
ander III.  (1177) 23 

Culmination  of  Papal  power;   Innocent  III.  (1198-1216)     ...  24 

His  theory  of  the  Papal  office      ........  24 

His  exercise  of  authority     .........  25 

Rise  of  the  spirit  of  nationalism ;   its  various  manifestations        .         .  26 

Benefits  of  the  Papacy  in  the  Middle  Ages;  approach  of  another  era  26 

National  languages  and  literatures       .......  27 

Anti-hierarchical  spirit  of  the  vernacular  writers          ....  27 

The  same  spirit  in  the  Legists      ........  30 

Reaction  against  the  Papacy;    Boniface  VIII.  (1294-1303)          .         .  30 
Conflict  of  Boniface  with  Philip  the  Fair     .         .         .         .         .         .31 

Declining    prestige    of     the     Papacy;     the    Babylonian    captivity 

(1309-1377) 32 

Character  of  the  Papacy  at  Avignon ;   Petrarch's  testimony        .         .  32 

Opposition  from  Germany  and  England       ......  32 

The  Monarchists  against  the  Papists    .         .         .         ...         .33 

Attacks  upon  Papal  usurpations  by  writers;    Marsilius  of  Padua  and 

William  of  Occam          .........  33 

The    Galilean    or    constitutional    theory;     the    Reforming    Councils 

(1409-1443) 35 

Increasing  sway  of  national  and  secular,  in  the  room  of  ecclesiastical 

feelings,  in  the  fifteenth  century  .......  36 

Consolidation  of  monarchies;    England,  France,  Spain         ...  36 

Secular  and  worldly  character  of  the  Popes          .....  37 

Sixtus   IV.    (1471-84);     Innocent   VIII.    (1484-92);     Alexander   VI. 

(1492-1503);   Julius  II.  (1503-13) 37 

Character   of    Leo    X.    (1513-21);     judgment   of    Sarpi,    Pallavicini, 

Muratori,  Guicciardini  .........  38 

The  importance  of  the  Popes,  chiefly  political     .....  39 

The  concessions  to  them  from  Princes  more  apparent  than  real  .         .  40 


CONTENTS 


xui 


An  illustration  in  the  repeal  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  (1516)  .  .  40 
Domination  of  secular  and  political  interests,  seen  in  the  contests 

of  Charles  V.  and  Francis  I.  .......       41 

The  development  of  nationalism  and  the  secularizing  of  the  Papacy, 

at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 41 

CHAPTER  III 


and  his  opinions 


SPECIAL    CAUSES    AND    OMENS    OF    AN    ECCLESIASTICAL    REVOLUTION 
PRIOR   TO    THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY 

Mediaeval  Christianity  characterized  by  legalism  .... 

Forms  of  reaction  against  it :    dissent  from  dogmas ;    attacks  on  the 

usurpations  and  abuses  of  the  clergy;  opposition  to  the  excessive 

esteem  of  ceremonies  and  austerities     . 
Consequences  of  a  possible  increase  of  intelligence 
Two  classes  of  forerunners  of  the  Reformation 
Anti-sacerdotal  sects    ..... 
The  Catharists  (Albigenses) 
The  Waldenses;   their  origin  (1170)     . 
The  Franciscan  Spirituals;   the  Fratricelli  . 
The  Beguines  and  Beghards 
What  is  indicated  by  the  rise  of  these  sects 
The  conservative  or  Galilean  Reformers 
Radical  Reformers;  John  Wickliffe  (1324-1384) 
How  he  was  protected  .... 

The  Lollards 

John  Huss  (1373-1415);   his  predecessors;   Matthias  of  Janow 
The  character  and  principles  of  Huss  ..... 
Huss  and  Wickliffe  on  the  authority  of  prelates  and  magistrates 
John  Wessel  (1420-89);   Luther's  opinion  of  him 

Savonarola  (1452-98) 

The  Mystics;   character  of  Mysticism  ..... 

Mysticism  among  the  Schoolmen;   Bernard,  Bonaventura  . 
John  Tauler  (1290-1361);   the  "  German  Theology  "    . 
The  "  Imitation  of  Christ "  ....... 

Nicholas  of  Cues  ........ 

The  Revival  of  Learning;    begins  in  Italy,  Dante  (1265-1321) 

trarch  (1304-74);   Boccaccio  (1313-75) 
Spread  of  the  literary  spirit;   consequences  to  the  Church  . 
Benefits  and  faults  of  Scholasticism;   causes  of  its  downfall 
It  had  lost  its  vitality ;   effect  of  Nominalism 
Renewed  study  of  the  Fathers  and  of  the  Scriptures  . 
Sceptical  spirit  of  Humanism  in  Italy;   influence  of  the  classic  school 

on  the  Church  of  Italy  ....... 

Semi-pagan  tone  of  politics  and  ethics;    Macchiavelli  (1469-1527) 
Religious  tone  of  Humanism  in  Germany;   Reuchlin  (1455-1522) 
His  victory  over  the  Monks  .... 

Humanism  and  the  Universities;   Wittenberg  (1502) 
Humanism  in  England;   Colet,  Erasmus,  More    . 
The  "Utopia";   its  liberal  ideas  on  Religion 
Erasmus  (1467-1536)  the  leader  of  Humanism    . 
His  fame  and  acquirements  .... 


Pe- 


43 


44 
44 
44 
45 
45 
46 
47 
47 
48 
48 
49 
50 
50 
50 
51 
51 
52 
53 
54 
54 
54 
55 
56 

57 
59 
59 
60 
61 

61 
63 
63 
64 
64 
64 
65 
66 
66 


CONTENTS 


His  "Praise  of  Folly" 

His  chastisement  of  ecclesiastical  follies  and  abuses     . 
His  editions  of  the  Fathers  and  of  the  New  Testament 
Diffusion  of  his  writings       ...... 

What  may  be  inferred  from  their  character  and  popularity 
Recapitulation;  symptoms  of  the  rise  of  a  new  order  of  things 


PAGE 

67 
68 
69 
69 
70 
70 


CHAPTER   IV 


LUTHER  AND  THE  GERMAN  REFORMATION  TO  THE  DIET  OF 
AUGSBURG,  1530 

Protestantism  congenial  to  the  German  mind 72 

Luther  the  hero  of  the  Reformation 73 

His  birth  (1483)  and  parentage 74 

Studies  at  Erfurt  (1501-5);   enters  a  convent  (1505)  ....  75 

Made  a  Professor  at  Wittenberg  (1508)        ......  77 

His  Uterary  and  theological  attainments      ......  77 

His  religious  experience        .........  78 

Sees  that  justification  is  by  faith          . 78 

Origin  of  indulgences;    the  Scholastic  doctrine     .....  79 

Luther  opposes  the  sale  of  indulgences  by  Tetzel  (1516)      .         .         .  80 

Luther  posts  his  ninety-five  Theses  (1517);   their  contents .         .         .  81 

Their  effect  in  Germany       .........  83 

Attacks  and  replies;   he  meets  Cajetan  at  Augsburg  (1518)          .         .  83 

Accedes  to  the  truce  offered  by  Miltitz  (1519) 84 

The  Leipsic  Disputation  (1519);    Philip  Melancthon   ....  84 

Melancthon's  character;    Luther's  geniality  and  humor        ...  85 

He  asserts  that  the  primacy  of  the  Pope  is  jure  humano      ...  86 

Effect  of  the  Leipsic  Disputation  upon  his  studies  and  opinions  .         .  86 

He  appeals  to  the  laity;    Address  to  the  Nobles  (1520)        ...  86 

Writes  "the  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the  Church"  (1520)  .         .         .  87 

Writes  on  the  "Freedom  of  a  Christian  Man"  (1520)  .         ...  88 

Is  excommunicated;  burns  the  Papal  bull  (1520)  ....  88 
Commotion  produced  in  Germany;    he  finds  political,  religious,  and 

literary  allies         ..........  89 

Ulrich  von  Hutten  (1488-1523) 89 

Political  condition  of  Germany;   weakness  of  the  central  government  90 

Abortive  efforts  under  Maximilian  (1493-1519)  to  organize  the  Empire  90 
Discontent  and  disorder;    complaints  by  the  knights,  the  cities,  the 

peasantry     ...........  91 

The  election  of  Charles  V.  (1519) :  consequent  alarm  in  Europe  .  91 
Rivalship  of  Charles  V.  and  Francis  I.  (1515-1547);   its  grounds,  the 

strength  of  the  rivals  respectively  .         .         .         .         .         .91 

Character  of  Charles  V. :  his  conduct  in  the  affair  of  the  Reformation  93 

Luther  summoned  to  the  Diet  of  Worms  (1521);   his  journey      .         .  94 

Appears  before  the  Diet;   refuses  to  recant           .....  95 

Placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire    .......  97 

Alliance  of  the  Emperor  with  Leo  X.;   the  terms  of  it         .         .         .98 

Luther  at  the  Wartburg  (1521-22) 98 

His  occupations;    labors  on  the  translation  of  the  New  Testament       .  99 

Radical  movement  of  Carlstadt :  Luther  returns  to  Wittenberg  (1522)  100 


CONTENTS 


XV 


He  restores  order;  his  vast  labors 

The  Council  of  Regency  declines  to  suppress  Lutheranism  . 

The  character  of  Pope  Adrian  VI.  (1522-23)  and  Pope  Clement  VIT 

(1523-34)    

The  Diet  at  Nuremberg  (1524);   remands  the  subject  of  the  Worms 

decree  to  the  several  princes  ..... 

Union  of  Catholic  princes  and  bishops;   division  of  the  Nation 

Protestant  League  of  Torgau  (1526) 

Battle  of  Pavia  (1525);   confederacy  against  Charles  . 
The  Diet  of  Spires  (1526)  refuses  to  enforce  the  Worms  Edict 
Sack  of  Rome  and  triumph  of  the  Emperor  (1527) 
Repressive  action  of  the  Diet  of  Spires  (1529);   the  Protest 
Opposition  of  Luther  to  armed  resistance    .... 

The  Diet  of  Augsburg  (1530);   situation  and  spirit  of  Charles 
The  Augsburg  Confession  and  Apology         .... 

Decree  adverse  to  the  Protestants        ..... 

The  courage  and  fidelity  of  the  Elector  John 

Luther  at  Coburg  (1530) ;   his  correspondence 

His  marriage  to  Catharine  von  Bora  (1525) 

His  motives;   effect  of  his  example      ..... 

His  controversy  with  King  Henry  VIII.  (1522)  . 

The  intemperance  of  Luther's  language,  how  explained 

His  apologetic  letter  to  Henry  VIII.  (1525) 

The  position  of  Erasmus  in  relation  to  the  Lutheran  movement 

His  gradual  estrangement  from  Luther  and  his  cause 

Merits  of  the  controversy     ....... 

Inability  of  Humanism  to  effect  a  Reform  .... 

The  peasants'  war  (1525);   how  far  owing  to  Protestantism 
Luther  supports  the  princes 


101 
101 

101 

102 
102 
103 
103 
103 
103 
104 
104 
104 
105 
105 
105 
106 
108 
108 
109 
109 
111 
112 
113 
115 
115 
116 
117 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   GERMAN    REFORMATION   TO   THE    PEACE    OP   AUGSBURG;    ZWINGLI 
AND   THE    SWISS    (GERMAN)    REFORMATION 


The  character  of  the  Swiss;   they  serve  as  mercenaries  in  the  armies 

of  France  and  of  the  Pope    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .119 

Birth  of  Zwingli  (1484);  his  native  character;  his  education  .  .  120 
At  Glarus  (1506-16)  he  opposes  the  system  of  pensions  and  of  hired 

service  under  the  French      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .120 

At  Einsiedeln  (1516-18)  preaches  salvation  by  the  grace  of  Christ 

alone     ............     121 

Adopts  the  principle  of  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Bible         .         .     122 
Preaches  against  indulgences;   is  established  at  Zurich  (1519)      .         .     122 
His  qualities  as  a  man  and  a  preacher  ......     123 

Public  disputation  (1523) ;   the  council  of  the  city  sustains  him  .         .     123 
His  doctrines;   a  second  disputation    .         .         .         .         .         .         .124 

Zurich  becomes  a  separate  Protestant  Church  (1524)  .         .         .         .124 

Zwingh's  "Commentary  on  True  and  False  Religion"  (1525)       .         .     124 
His  view  respecting  the  salvation  of  the  heathen  ....     124 

The  Reformation  in  Basel  (1529);    Berne  (1528);    St.  Gall  (1528); 

Schaffhausen  (1529) 125 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


Swiss 


The  ecclesiastical  revolution  is  also  a  political  one 
Contrast  of  Luther  and  Zwingli;   their  religious  experience 
Comparative  conservatism  of  Luther  ..... 
Mingling  of  patriotism  and  religion  in  Zwingli     , 
Luther  led  the  resistance  to  the  Church  of  Rome 
The  Eucharistic  controversy  between  the  Lutherans  and  the 
History  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist      .... 
Three  opinions ;    Luther,  Zwingli,  Calvin      .... 
Ground  of  Luther's  vehemence  against  the  Zwinglian  doctrine 
The  Conference  at  Marburg  (1529)       ..... 
The  result;   subsequent  revival  of  the  controversy  (1543)    . 
Catastrophe  of  the  Swiss  Reformation;  war  between  the  Catholic  and 

Protestant  Cantons       .... 
Death  of  Zwingli  (1531)       .... 
The  Treaty  of  Peace;   Protestantism  checked 
Formation  of  the  League  of  Smalcald  (1531) 
The  Emperor  disabled  for  ten  years  (1532-42)  from  carrying  out  the 

Augsburg  Decree  ..... 
Catholic  League  (1538)         .... 
Conferences  of  the  opposing  parties  (1537-45);   Contarini 
The  League  of  Smalcald,  how  weakened 
Maurice  of  Saxony  joins  the  Emperor  (1546) 
Last  days  of  Luther     ..... 
The  relations  of  Luther  and  Melancthon  to  each  other 
Melancthon's  funeral  address  on  Luther  (1546)    . 
Luther's  power  and  influence;   remarks  of  Dollinger    . 
The  Smalcaldic  war  (1546-47);    defeat  of  the  Protestants  at 

berg  (1547) 

The  Augsburg  Interim  (1548) ;    Charles's  plan  of  pacification 

He  is  disappointed;   action  of  the  Council  of  Trent 

Union  of  Paul  III.  and  Francis  I.  against  him  (1547) . 

Resistance  to  the  Augsburg  Interim  in  North  Germany;   the  Leipsic 

Interim  (1548) 

Better  prospects  of  Protestantism        ..... 
Maurice  turns  against  Charles;    drives  him  out  of  Innsbruck 

Treaty  of  Passau  (1552) 

Peace  of  Augsburg  (1555);    the  jus  rejormandi:    the  Ecclesiastical 

Reservation 

Abdication  of  Charles  (1556) 


Miihl 


(1552) 


125 
126 
126 
127 
128 
129 
129 
129 
130 
132 
134 

134 
135 
136 
136 

137 
137 
138 
139 
139 
139 
140 
142 
142 

143 
143 
143 

144 

144 
145 
145 
146 

146 
147 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE    REFORMATION    IN   THE    SCANDINAVIAN    KINGDOMS,    IN    THE 
SLAVONIC    NATIONS,    AND    IN    HUNGARY 


Spread    of    the    Reformation;     agency    of    Germans;     influence    of 

Wittenberg 148 

The  Scandinavian  kingdoms;   the  Union  of  Calmar  (1397) .         .         .  148 
Christian  II.  of  Denmark  (1513-23)  favors  Protestantism,  then  draws 

back 148 

He  is  deposed  and  succeeded  by  Frederic  I.  (1523-33)         .         .         .  149 

Spread  of  Lutheranism  in  Denmark  in  his  reign  .....  149 


CONTENTS 


Under  Christian  III.  the  Reformation  is  legalized 

Constitution  of  the  Danish  Protestant  Church     .... 

Democratic  movements  in  Liibeck  and  other  cities,  in  connection 

with  the  Reformation  ........ 

Estabhshment  of  Protestantism  in  Norway  (1537) 

Olaf  and  Laurence  Petersen  preach  Protestantism  in  Sweden  (1519) 

Gustavus  Vasa  (1523-60)  favors  it       .....         . 

It  is  adopted  at  the  Diet  of  Westeras  (1527)        .... 

What  was  done  with  ecclesiastical  property  .... 

Failure  of  subsequent  efforts  to  restore  Catholicism     . 

Effect  of  the  execution  of  Huss  in  Bohemia  (1415) 

Hussite  movement  was  both  religious  and  national 

The  demand  of  the  cup  for  the  laity;   history  of  the  practice  of  with 

holding  it      .........         . 

The  Prague  University  declares  for  the  Utraquists       .         , 
Division  of  the  Utraquists ;   the  Taborites  ..... 

Ziska  (1360-1424)  their  leader 

The  Articles  of  Prague,  the  platform  of  the  Utraquists  (1421)     . 
Three  Crusades  fail  to  subdue  them     ...... 

They  are  heard  at  the  Council  of  Basel  (1433)     .... 

The  Compactata  ......... 

Conflict  of  Calixtines  and  Taborites     ...... 

The  rise  of  the  Brethren  in  Unity  (circa  1450)     .... 

Favorable  reception  of  Lutheranism  by  the  Hussites  . 

The  Utraquists  refuse  to  join  Ferdinand  in  the  Smalcaldic  war  . 

Subsequent  persecution  of  Bohemian  Protestants 

Religious  condition  of  Poland  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation     . 

How  Protestantism  was  introduced      ...... 

The  spread  of  the  new  doctrine  in  Polish  Prussia  and  in  Livonia  (1524) 

Sigismund  II.  (1548-72)  favorable  to  it 

Religious  dissension  among  Protestants :  spread  of  Unitarianism 

John  k  Lasco  (1499-1560) 

Union  of  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  and  Brethren,  in  the  Synod  of  Sen- 

domir  (1570) 

Equality  of  rights  granted  to  all  the  Churches     .... 
The  Reformation  introduced  into  Hungary  .... 

Effect  of  the  civil  war  (1526)  upon  its  progress   .... 
Strife  between  the  Calvinists  and  Lutherans        .... 


CHAPTER   VII 

JOHN    CALVIN    AND   THE    GENEVAN    REFOBMATION 

Calvin  belongs  to  the  second  generation  of  Reformers 

His  birth  (1509),  family,  and  education       .... 

Studies  at  Paris;   studies  law  at  Orleans  and  Bourges 

His  mental  power  and  habits  of  study  .... 

Publishes  Seneca's  treatise  on  "Clemency"  (1532);   his  motive 
His  conversion  (1532)  ........ 

His  reserve  and  love  of  retirement       ..... 

Obliged  to  fly  from  Paris  (1533);  at  Angoul§me;  at  B^arn;  returns 

to  Paris 172 


CONTENTS 


Obliged  again  to  fly,  on  account  of  placards  against  the  mass  (1535) 

His  first  theological  work;   the  " Psychopannychia "  (1534) 

At  Basel  (1535) ;   studies  Hebrew;   writes  the  "Institutes" 

His  motive  in  composing  this  work      ...... 

His  characteristics  as  a  writer  and  a  man    ..... 

His  adoption  of  the  Bible  as  the  sole  standard  of  doctrine  . 

His  conception  of  the  Church  and  reverence  for  it       .         .         . 

His  doctrine  of  predestination      ....... 

Is  attached  to  the  doctrine  on  practical  grounds 

His  opinion  compared  with  that  of  Augustine      .... 

His  ability  as  a  commentator       . 

Not  an  extremist  in  respect  to  forms  and  rites    .... 

The  acerbity  of  his  temper  ........ 

His  piety  tinged  with  the  Old  Testament  spirit   . 

His  homage  to  law  and  sense  of  the  exaltation  of  God 

Less  broad  in  his  sympathies  than  Luther  ..... 

His  greatness  of  mind  and  of  character        ..... 

Visits  the  court  of  the  Duchess  of  Ferrara  (1536) 

Stops  at  Geneva  on  his  return  (1536)  ...... 

Geneva  subject  to  Savoy;   achieves  its  independence  (1533) 

Protestant  influences  from  Berne  ...... 

Expulsion  of  the  Bishop  from  Geneva  and  establishment  of  Protestant- 
ism (1535)     

Farel  (1489-1565);  his  history  and  character;  his  preaching  at 
Geneva  .......... 

Discontent  there  with  the  new  ecclesiastical  system    . 

State  of  morals    .......... 

Farel  moves  Calvin  to  remain  and  assist  him  (1536)    . 

Strict  regulations  of  Church  discipline  ..... 

Opposition  to  them      .         .         .         .         .         . 

The  preachers  refuse  to  administer  the  Sacrament 

They  are  banished  by  the  citizens  (1538)     ..... 

Calvin  resides  at  Strasburg;  attends  the  German  religious  Confer- 
ences (1539-1541)  

His  opinion  of  Luther;  his  relations  to  Melancthon    . 

His  marriage        .......... 

Is  recalled  to  Geneva  (1541),  and  why 

His  letter  to  Sadolet    .        • 

His  reluctance  to  return 

The  Genevan  civil  and  ecclesiastical  system         .... 

The  Little  Council;    the  Consistory      ...... 

Vigilant  supervision  of  the  people  by  preachers  and  elders  . 

The  Venerable  Company      ........ 

Calvin  takes  part  in  framing  the  civil  laws ..... 

How  the  preachers  were  chosen  ....... 

Disaffection  arises;    the  Libertines       ...... 

Combination  of  different  classes  of  Calvin's  opponents 

Severity  of  the  Genevan  laws 

Religious  intolerance ;    its  history 

Practiced  in  the  Middle  Ages 

The  Reformers  did  not  advocate  toleration  .... 

Conflicts  of  Calvin  and  efi"orts  to  intimidate  him 

Bolsec  banished  (1551)   for  assailing  the  doctrine  of  f)redestination 


CONTENTS 


Expulsion  of  Castellio  (1544) 

Michael  Servetus;   his  history  and  character 
His  book  on  the  "Errors  of  the  Trinity"  (1531) . 
His  second  book  —  the  "Restoration  of  Christianity" 
Tried  for  heresy  before  a  Roman  Catholic  Court  at  Vienne 
Proof  furnished  from  Geneva       ...... 

He  escapes  and  comes  to  Geneva  (1553)      .... 

Is  arrested  and  tried    ........ 

Is  convicted  and  burned  at  the  stake  ..... 

Agency  of  Calvin  in  the  transaction;   verdict  of  Guizot 

The  execution  of  Servetus  generally  approved 

Further  efforts  of  the  Libertines;   their  final  overthrow  (1555) 

Calvin's  multiplied  labors  and  vast  influence 

His  last  years ;  the  variety  of  his  employments ;  his  infirmities  of 

His  last  illness  (1564);   his  interview  with  the  Council 

His  interview  with  the  preachers  ..... 

Estimate  of  his  character     ....... 

Calvinism  lays  emphasis  on  the  sovereignty  of  God     . 
Why  favorable  to  civil  liberty     ...... 

It  does  not  surrender  the  government  of  the  Church  to  the 
authority      ......... 

Its  church  organization  is  republican  ..... 

It  dwarfs  earthly  sovereignty  by  exalting  the  divine  . 
Compared  with  Romanism  in  its  view  of  the  civil  authority 


body 


civil 


PAGE 

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199 
199 
200 
200 
202 
202 
203 
204 
205 
205 
206 
207 
207 

207 
208 
208 
208 


CHAPTER   VIII 


THE   REFORMATION   IN    FRANCE 


The  Sorbonne  and  Parliament  oppose  doctrinal  innovations        .         .     209 
Effect  of  the  repeal  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  (1516)  .         .         .     209 

Reform  emanates  from  Humanism       .......     209 

Francis  I.  (1515-47);   the  patron  of  learning  and  art .         .         .         .     209 

Lef^vre   (1450-1536),  the  Father  of  the  Reformation;    his  studies 

and  writings 210 

His  mystical  turn;   his  pupil,  Bri^onnet      .         .         .         .         .         .211 

Hostility  of  the  Sorbonne  and  of  Parliament  to  Lef6vre  and  his  school     211 
Heresy  suppressed  in  Meaux  (1525)     .......     211 

Margaret,  Queen  of  Navarre  (1492-1549);    her  sympathy  with  the 

Mystical  School 212 

Her  writings;  she  favors  the  Protestants  without  joining  them  .  .  212 
Francis  I.  opposes  the  Sorbonne;  supports  his  sister  .  .  .  .213 
Changes  his  course;   engages  in  persecution  .         .         .         .         .214 

Doubtful  position  of  France  respecting  the  Reformation  .  .  .  214 
Rome,  Renaissance,  the  Reformation;  the  three  rivals  .  .  .  215 
Why  Calvinism  was  disliked         ........     215 

Spirit  of  Loyola  and  the  Catholic  Reaction 216 

Rabelais  (1483-1553) 216 

Vacillation  of  Francis  I.  and  its  consequences  .  .  .  .  .217 
He  persecutes  the  Protestants  (1534);    courts  the  alliance  of   the 

Lutheran  princes 217 

Spread  of  Protestantism  in  France  in  his  reign    .....     219 


XJ5  CONTENTS 

PASE 

Influence  of  Geneva  and  of  Calvin 219 

Henry  II.  (1547-59);   his  hostility  to  the  Reformation        .         .         .219 

Its  progress 219 

The  Calvinists  hold  a  general  Synod  (1559) 220 

Persecution  after  the  treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis;  death  of  Henry  II. 

(1559) 220 

Heroism  of  the  sufferers 221 

How  the  Huguenots  became  a  political  party 221 

Catharine  de  Medici;    her  relations  to  Henry  and  his  mistress;    and 

her  character         ..........  221 

Francis  II.  (1559-60)  is  controlled  by  the  Guises;   their  history  and 

character 221 

Discontent  of  the  Bourbons  and  Chatillons 223 

Connection  of  the  great  nobles  with  the  Calvinists       ....  223 

Calvin  preaches  to  them  submission;   their  patience    ....  224 

The  conspiracy  of  Amboise  (1560) 225 

Its  consequences;   the  Edict  of  Romorantin  (1560)      ....  225 

Coligny  supports  the  petition  of  the  Protestants  for  liberty  of  worship  225 
The  States  General  called  together  at  Orleans  (1560)  .         .         .         .226 

Arrest  of  Cond^ ;   Navarre  placed  under  surveillance 226 

Plot  for  the  extirpation  of  Protestantism 226 

Frustrated  by  the  death  of  Francis  II.  (1560) 227 

Catharine  de  Medici;   her  virtual  guardianship  of  Charles  IX.  (1560- 

74),  and  regency 227 

Influence  of  L'Hospital 227 

Strength  of  the  Protestants           . 227 

Guise,  Montmorenci,  and  St.  Andr6  form  the  Triumvirate  .         .         .  228 

TheColloquy  at  Poissy  (1561);    Beza 228 

The  Edict  of  St.  Germain  (1562)  grants  a  measure  of  toleration          .  229 

The  Massacre  of  Vassy  (1562)  begins  the  civil  wars     ....  230 

The  Huguenots  fought  in  self-defense 231 

Siege  of   Rouen;    battle  of   Dreux   (1562);    assassination  of  Guise 

(1563) 232 

The  Edict  of  Amboise  (1563);   the  character  of  it        .         .         .         .232 

The  Huguenots  take  up  arms ;   Peace  of  Long jumeau  (1568)       .         .  232 

Conference  at  Bayonne  (1565)      ........  233 

Renewal  of  the  war  under  Spanish  influence;    battles  of  Jarnac  and 

Moncontour  (1569)        .........  233 

Treaty  of  St.  Germain  (1570);    reasons  that  influenced  the  Court  to 

makepeace;  fortified  towns  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Huguenots  234 

Political  crisis  in  Europe ;    will  France  make  war  on  Spain  ?        .         .  234 

Proposal  that  Henry  of  Navarre  shall  marry  Margaret  of  Valois          ,  235 

Coligny  comes  to  Court;    his  character         ......  235 

The  origin  of  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  (1572)         .         .         .  236 

Had  it  been  planned  earlier  ?........  237 

Joy  at  Madrid  and  at  Rome         . 238 

Effect  of  the  massacre  on  the  surviving  Huguenots     .         .         .         .  238 

The  party  of  the  Politiques  or  Liberal  Catholics  is  formed  .         .         .  239 

Organization  of  the  League 239 

Position  of  Henry  III.  (1574-89) 239 

Excommunication  of  Navarre  and  Cond^  by  Sixtus  V.  (1585)      .         .  240 

War  of  the  "Three  Henries"  (1586) 240 

Assassination  of  the  Guises  by  order  of  Henry  III.  (1588)  .         .         ,  240 


CONTENTS 


zxi 


He  joins  the  army  of  Henry  of  Navarre       .... 

Henry  III.  is  assassinated  (1589) 

Henry  IV.;  his  war  with  the  League;  the  battle  of  Ivry  (1590) 
His  contest  with  Alexander  of  Parma  (1592) 
Abjuration  of  Henry  IV. ;  its  motives  (1593);  its  effect 
Character  of  this  act    ........ 

Other  misfortunes  of  the  Huguenots 

The  administration  of  Henry  IV.;   the  Edict  of  Nantes  (1598) 
The  Huguenots  become  an  isolated  and  defensive  party 


240 
240 
240 
241 
241 
241 
243 
243 
244 


CHAPTER   IX 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  THE  NETHERLANDS 


Prosperity  and  intelligence  of  the  people  of  the  Netherlands        .         .  245 

Relation  of  the  Netherlands  to  the  German  Empire    ....  246 

Influences  favorable  to  Protestantism 246 

Persecuting  edicts  of  Charles  V.  (1521  seq.) 246 

Martyrdoms  at  Brussels  (1523);   Luther's  hymn          ....  247 

Continued  persecution  by  Charles  V. ;   number  of  martyrs  .         .         .  247 

Abdication  of  Charles  V.  (1555) 248 

Fanatical  and  despotic  character  of  Philip  II.  (1555-98)      .         .         .  248 

His  unpopularity  in  the  Netherlands 249 

The  great  nobles;   Orange,  Egmont     .......  249 

Margaret  of  Parma  is  made  Regent  (1559);   her  character  .         .         .  250 

Granvelle;   his  character      .........  250 

Conduct  of  the  government  is  placed  in  his  hands        ....  250 

Philip  keeps  in  the  Netherlands  Spanish  regiments      ....  250 

He  creates  new  bishoprics    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .251 

Design  of  these  measures 251 

Character  of  the  nobles;   William  of  Orange 251 

Philip  renews  the  persecuting  edicts    • 252 

The  Inquisition  and  its  cruelties           .......  253 

Orange  and  Egmont  complain  of  Granvelle  to  the  King      .         .         .  253 

How  far  Granvelle  was  responsible      . 253 

He  leaves  the  country  (1564) 254 

Speech  of  William  of  Orange  against  the  policy  of  the  government     .  254 

Egmont  goes  to  Spain  to  enlighten  the  King 254 

He  is  duped  by  the  assurances  of  Philip 255 

Effect  of  the  continued  cruelties 255 

The  "Compromise"  (1566) 255 

The  Regent  allows  Protestant  preaching  outside  of  the  cities       .         .  256 

Philip  promises  to  mitigate  his  policy;   the  proof  of  his  perfidy  .         .  256 

Iconoclasm  (1566) 256 

The  Regent  makes  a  truce  with  the  Confederacy  of  Nobles          .         .  256 

Orange  leaves  the  country  .........  257 

Vengeance  of  Philip;   mission  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  (1567)  .         .         .  258 

He  arrests  Egmont  and  Horn;   the  "Council  of  Blood"       .         .         .  259 

Alva  defeats  Louis  of  Nassau;  Egmont  and  Horn  are  beheaded  (1568)  260 

Alva's  plan  of  taxation  (1569)      ........  260 

The  spirit  of  resistance  is  awakened     .......  260 

The  "Sea-beggars";  they  capture  Briel  (1572) 260 


xxii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Holland  and  Zealand  adopt  a  free  constitution;   Orange  made  Stadt- 

holder  (1572) 261 

Alva  detested  by  the  people;   he  is  recalled  (1573)      .         .         .         .261 

Requesens  succeeds  him  (1573) 261 

Growth  of  a  Protestant  state  under  Orange         .         .         .         .         .261 
Flanders  and  Brabant  invoke  his  help;    the  Pacification  of  Ghent 

(1576) 262 

Don  John  succeeds  Requesens  (1576)  . 262 

Division  between  the  Southern  and  Northern  Provinces      .         .         .  262 

Alexander  of  Parma  succeeds  Don  John  (1578) 262 

The  Utrecht  Union  formed  in  the  North  (1579)  .....  263 
Outlawry  of  William  of  Orange  (1580);   his  "Apology"      .         .         .263 

His  character       . 264 

His  assassination  (1584)       .........  265 

The  Catholic  Provinces  submit  to  Parma     ......  265 

Philip's  intention  to  remove  him;   death  of  Parma  (1592)  .         .         .  265 

Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic;   disasters  of  Philip  and  of  Spain      .         .  266 

The  Anabaptists 266 

Prevalence  of  Calvinism       .........  266 

The  Calvinists  do  not  adopt  the  principle  of  toleration         .         .         .  267 
Difference  between  Protestants  and  Catholics  in  respect  to  intoler- 
ance     ............  267 

William  of  Orange  advocates  religious  liberty      .....  268 

Controversy  on  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  civil  authority          .  269 

Germs  of  the  Arminian  controversy 269 

CHAPTER   X 


THE    REFORMATION    IN    ENGLAND    AND    SCOTLAND 

Lollards  numerous  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century      .         .  270 

Influence  of  the  Revival  of  learning     .......  270 

Cardinal  Wolsey  a  friend  of  learning 270 

Tyndale  (d.  1536)  and  Frith  (d.  1533) 271 

The  peculiarity  of  the  English  Reformation         .         .         .         .         .271 

No  prominent  leaders  as  on  the  Continent  .         .         .         .         .         .271 

Henry  VIII.  seeks  a  divorce  from  Clement  VII.  (1527)        .         .         .272 

Henry  reduces  the  power  of  the  Pope  and  the  clergy  in  England         .  273 

Revives  the  statute  of  "praemunire"  (1531)         .....  273 

Addressed  by  the  clergy  as  Head  of  the  English  Church      .         .         .  273 

Is  divorced  and  marries  Anne  Boleyn  (1532) 273 

The  act  of  Supremacy  (1534) 274 

Abolishing  of  the  monasteries  (1536)  .......  274 

A  Catholic  and  a  Protestant  party  in  the  Council  and  in  the  Church  274 

Cranmer  leads  the  Protestant  party;   his  character     ....  275 

Thomas  Cromwell ;    Gardiner       ........  275 

The  English  Bible  issued  by  the  King's  authority        ....  275 

The  Ten  Articles  (1536) 275 

The  Rebellion  of  1536 276 

The  Catholic  party  in  the  ascendency  ;  the  Six  Articles  (1539)    .         •  276 

The  Fall  of  Cromwell  (1540) 276 

Antagonism  of  the  two  parties  after  Henry's  death  (1547)  .         .         .  277 

Protestantism  prevails  under  Edward  VI 278 


CONTENTS 


PAOE 

Cranmer  reinforced  by  theologians  from  the  Continent         .         .         .  278 
The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  (1548,  1552);   the  Articles  of  Religion 

(1552) 278 

The  progress  too  rapid  for  the  popular  feeling 278 

Fall  of  the  Protector  Somerset  (1551) 279 

Revisal  of  the  ecclesiastical  statutes    .......  279 

Reactionary  movement  under  Mary  (1553-58)     .....  279 

Restoration  of  the  Catholic  system ;  her  marriage  with  Philip  II.  (1554)  279 

Martyrdom  of  Cranmer,  Ridley,  and  Latimer  (1555-56)       .         .         .  280 

The  character  of  Cranmer    .........  280 

Unpopularity  of  Mary  and  its  causes 281 

Extreme  demands  of  Pope  Paul  IV 281 

Accession  of  Elizabeth  (1558);   her  conservative  Protestantism  .         .  282 

Revision  of  the  Articles  (1563) 282 

Act  of  Supremacy  and  Acts  of  Uniformity  (1559);    Court  of  High 

Commission  (1583) 282 

Treatment  of  the  Catholics  .........  283 

Distinction  between  the  Anglican  Church  and  the  Protestant  Churches 

on  the  Continent  ..........  283 

Little  controversy  on  Episcopacy  in  the  first  age  of  the  Reformation  283 

Fraternal  relation  of  the  English  and  the  Continental  Churches  .         .  284 

Cranmer  asserts  the  parity  of  the  clergy      ......  284 

Testimony  of  Lord  Bacon;   position  of  Hooker  (1553-1600)         .         .  285 

Agreement  of  the  Anglican  and  Continental  Churches  on  predestination  286 

The  Augustinian  and  Calvinistic  doctrine  compared    ....  287 

Influence  of  Calvin  and  of  his  writings  in  England       ....  288 

Anglican  divines  not  rigid  predestinarians  ......  288 

Anghcan  doctrine  Calvinistic  on  the  Eucharist    .....  289 

This  doctrine  expressed  in  the  Articles         .         .         .         .         .         .291 

The  Puritan  objections  to  the  vestments     .         .         .         .         .         .291 

Views  of  Jewel  and  other  Elizabethan  bishops     .....  292 

The  Queen's  opposition  to  changes  in  the  ritual  .....  293 

Her  enforcement  of  uniformity    ........  294 

Cartwright  an  advocate  of  Presbyterianism   (1572)      ....  294 

The  bearing  of  his  principles  on  the  Queen's  Supremacy      .         .         .  295 

Rise  of  the  Independents;   their  principles  .         .....  295 

Hooker  on  Church  government  and  on  the  relation  of  Church  and  State  296 

Merits  of  the  controversy  of  the  Anglicans  and  Puritans     .         .         .  297 

Lord  Bacon's  review  of  it 297 

No  iconoclasm  in  England  .........  298 

Connection  of  the  Scottish  Reformation  with  Elizabeth       .         .         .  299 

Character  of  the  Scottish  nobility;   of  the  commons    ....  299 

The  clergy  ignorant  and  vicious;   their  wealth     .....  300 

Treatment  of  Protestantism  under  the  Regent  Mary  (1554-60)  .         .  300 
Return  of  Knox  from  the  Continent  (1559)          .         .         .         .         .301 

The  education  of  Knox;  begins  to  preach;  a  captive  in  France  (1547)  301 
He    resides    at    Geneva    (1556-59);     his    "Monstrous    Regimen    of 

Women" .302 

The  Covenant  of  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation  (1557)        .         .         .  302 

The  preaching  of  Knox;   iconoclasm 303 

Elizabeth  sends  troops  to  aid  the  lords  (1560)      .....  303 
Death  of  the  Queen-Regent  (1560) ;   legal  establishment  of  Protestant- 
ism (1560) 303 


XXIV 


CONTENTS 


The  ecclesiastical  property,  how  used .         ,         .         .         ^         .         .  303 

Return  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  from  France  (1561);   her  character  304 

She  does  not  resist  Protestantism;   grounds  of  her  policy    .         .         .  305 

Knox's  opposition  to  the  mass  in  her  Chapel  (1561)    .         .         .         .  306 

Conference  of  Knox  and  the  Queen      . 306 

Their  debate  on  the  "  regimen  of  women  "  ......  307 

On  the  right  of  subjects  to  resist  their  sovereign          ....  308 

Knox's  opinion  of  Mary       .........  309 

He  preaches  against  the  dancing  at  Holyrood ;  another  conference  with 

Mary 310 

The  people  suppress  the  mass  in  the  western  districts  (1563)       .         .  310 

Knox  defends  their  conduct  in  a  conversation  with  the  Queen    .         .  310 

Knox  arraigned  for  convening  her  lieges      ......  312 

He  describes  his  examination  before  her  and  the  Privy  Council  .         .312 
Knox's  public  prayer  for  the  Queen  and  the  realm      .         .         ,         .312 
He  considers  toleration  of  Catholic  worship  a  sin         .         .         .         .313 

Mary's  marriage  with  Darnley  (1565)  .         .         .         .         .         .         .314 

It  displeases  Elizabeth;    Mary's  hopes  center  in  Spain  and  the  Guises  314 

Murder  of  Rizzio  by  Darnley  and  the  jealous  nobles  (1566)          .         .  315 

Mary's  repugnance  to  Darnley  and  attachment  to  Bothwell        .         .  316 

Circumstances  preceding  the  murder  of  Darnley .....  317 

Abduction  of  the  Queen  by  Bothwell  (1567) 318 

He  is  divorced  from  his  wife  and  marries  Mary  (1567)         .         .         .  319 
She  surrenders  to  the  lords  at  Carberry  Hill  (1567)      .         .         .         .319 

The  problem  of  the  "  casket  letters  "    .......  319 

Mary  abdicates  in  favor  of  her  son ;   makes  Murray  Regent  (1567)      .  321 

Constitution  of  the  Kirk;    the  Second  Book  of  Discipline  (1577-81)  322 

Full  establishment  of  the  Presbyterian  system  (1592)  ....  323 

Mary  escapes  from  Lochleven  (1568);  is  defeated  at  Langside  (1568); 

a  prisoner  in  England  .........  323 

Hostility  of  the  Catholic  Reaction  to  Elizabeth  .....  324 

She  sends  help  to  the  Netherlands  (1585) 324 

Execution  of  Mary  (1587) 325 

Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada  (1588) 325 

Protestantism  in  Ireland      .........  325 

Effect  of  the  Catholic  Reaction  on  the  Irish         .....  326 

Lord  Bacon  on  the  way  to  treat  Ireland 326 


CHAPTER   XI 


THE    REFORMATION    IN    ITALY    AND    SPAIN;    THE    COUNTER- 
REFORMATION    IN    THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    CHURCH 

Resistance  to  Protestantism  organized  in  Italy  and  Spain  .         .         .  327 

Political  condition  of  Italy  in  its  bearing  on  Protestantism  .         .  327 

The  corruption  of  the  Church  understood  by  Italians ....  328 

Arnold  of  Brescia  (d.  1155) 328 

Dante  (1265-1321)  attacks  the  temporal  power,  but  not  the  Catholic 

dogmas 328 

His  ideal  of  the  restored  Empire  .......  329 

How  Boccaccio  (1313-75)  treats  the  Church  and  the  clergy         .         .  330 

The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance;    Laurentius  Valla  (d.  1405)  .         .         .  330 

The  service  of  Humanism  and  its  limits;   the  academies     .         .         .  330 


CONTENTS 


DifiFusion  of  Lutheran  writings  in  Italy 331 

Protestantism  in  Italy  a  thing  of  degrees 332 

The  Oratory  of  Divine  Love;    Contarini 332 

The  reformed  opinions  in  Ferrara;    the  Duchess  Ren^e  (L527)     .         .  333 

Protestantism  in  other  cities 334 

In  Naples;   Juan  Vald6s  (circa  1530) 334 

Ochino  and  Peter  Martyr     .........  335 

Treatise  on  the  "  Benefits  of  Christ " 335 

The  Sacramentarian  dispute         ........  335 

Paul  III.  (1534-49)  favors  the  Catholic  reforming  party  (1537)  .         .  335 

Contarini  at  Ratisbon  (1541)        ........  336 

Caraffa  leads  the  rigidly  orthodox  party  of  reform       ....  336 

New  orders;   the  Theatines  (1524)       .......  337 

Ignatius  Loyola  (1491-1556)  founds  the  order  of  the  Jesuits  (1540)  337 

His  book  of  "Spiritual  Exercises"        .......  338 

The  constitution  of  the  Jesuit  order     .......  339 

The  Council  of  Trent  (1545-1563) 340  ' 

Its  definitions  are  anti-Protestant        .......  341 

Its  practical  work  in  the  way  of  reform       .         .         .         .         .         .341 

The  Council  serves  to  consolidate  the  Catholic  Church         .         .         .341 

The  Inquisition;   its  history;   the  Spanish  Inquisition  .         .         .  341_ 

The  Inquisition  in  Italy  (1542),  how  organized    .....  343 

Flight  of  Ochino  (1542),  Peter  Martyr  (1542),  Vergerio  (1548)    .         .  343 

Persecution  of  Protestants  .........  343 

Suppression  of  Books;    the  Index  Prohibitorius  (1557)         .         .         .  343 

The  Index  Expurgatorius     . 344 

Persecution  of  Evangelical  Catholics    .......  344 

Extirpation  of  Protestantism  in  Italy  ......  344 

Introduction  of  Protestantism  into  Spain    ......  345 

Converts  to  Protestantism  at  Seville  and  Valladolid    ....  345 

Reception  of  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith      ....  346 

Autos  da  fe  (1559-60)  . 346 

Success  of  the  Inquisition     .........  347  -, 

Persecution  of  the  Evangelical  Catholics;   Carranza  (1558-1576)  .  347 

Attitude  of  the  Popes  in  respect  to  the  Catholic  Reaction;    Paul  IV. 

(1555-59);   Pius  IV.  (1559-65) ;    Pius  V.  (1566-72)       .         .         .348 
Sixtus    V.    excommunicates    Henry    IV.    (1585),    and    supports    the 

League  ...........  349 

Change  in  the  intellectual  spirit  of  Italy;    Tasso  (1544-95);    the  new 

schools  of  painting         .........  349 

Carlo  Borromeo's  private  virtues  and  Christian  work  (1538-84)  .         .  350 

The  Jesuits  as  educators       .........  350 

They  extend  their  influence  in  Europe         ......  350 

Countries  recovered  to  the  Church  of  Rome         .         .         .         .         .351 

Causes  of  the  check  of  Protestantism;    Macaulay's  discussion      .         .  351 

The  crystallizing  of  parties  .........  352 

Political  arrangements  .........  352 

The  removal  of  abuses  in  the  Church  of  Rome     .....  353 

Protestants  waste  their  strength  in  contests  with  one  another     .         .  353 

The  better  organization  of  the  Roman  Catholics  ....  354 

They  use  the  varieties  of  talents  and  character    .....  354 

More  rooted  attachment  in  Southern  Europe  to  the  Church  of  Rome  354 

Discord  arises  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Party;   its  effect        .         .         .  355 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XII 


THE  STRUGGLE  OF  PROTESTANTISM  IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 


Reverses  experienced  by  the  Catholic  Reaction  . 

Principal  topics  to  be  considered 

Failure  of  Charles  V.  to  subjugate  the  Protestants 

Effect  of  the  Peace  of  Augsburg  (1555);    Philip  II.  not  supported  by 

Ferdinand  I.  and  Maximilian  II. 
Their  successors    under  the   sway  of   the  Jesuits  and  the  Catholic 

Reaction       ...... 

Origin  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  (1618-1648) 

The  Evangelical  Union  (1608) ;  the  Catholic  League  led  by  Maximilian 

of  Bavaria  (1609) 

The  Bohemians  revolt  against  Ferdinand  II.;    give  their  crown  to 

Frederic  V.,  the  Elector  Palatine  (1619)        .... 
Bigotry  of  Ferdinand  II.,  and  of  the  Elector        .... 
Defeat  of  the  Bohemians;    conquest  of  the  Palatine  (1622) 
Triple  alliance  for  the  restoration  of  the  Elector  (1625) 
Failure  of  the  Danish  intervention  (1626-1629)  .... 
Wallenstein  delivers  Ferdinand  from  subjection  to  the  League    . 
The  constitution  of  the  armies;    the  miseries  of  the  war 
Victories  of  Wallenstein  and  of  Tilly  (1626-1629) 
The  Edict  of  Restitution  (1629);   the  removal  of  Wallenstein  (1630) 
Intervention  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  (1630) ;  his  character  and  motives 
Victories  of  Gustavus;    Wallenstein  reappointed  (1632);    the  battle 

of  Lutzen  (1632) 

Influence  of  Richelieu  (1624-1642);   ground  of  French  intervention    . 

The  death  of  Wallenstein  (1634) 

Predominance  of  Richelieu  in  the  conduct  of  the  war  (1634) 
The  struggle  protracted,  and  why        ..... 

The  Peace  of  Westphalia  (1648) 

Position  of  England  under  the  Stuarts         .... 

Widening  gulf  between  Anglicans  and  Puritans 

Hostility  of  James  I.  (1603-1625)  to  the  Puritans;  the  Hampton 

Conference  (1604) 

Charles  I.  (1625-1649) ;  his  arbitrary  system  of  government 

Archbishop  Laud  (1633) 

The  League  and  Covenant  of  the  Scots  (1638)  . 
The  war  between  King  and  Parliament  (1642)  . 
The  Westminster  Assembly;  parties  in  it  (1642) 
Establishment  of  Presby terianism ;  how  limited  . 
Cromwell  (1653-1658)  and  the  Independents 

The  settlers  of  New  England  (1620) 

Their  ecclesiastical  system  ....... 

Distinction  between  the  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  settlers 
Protestantism  in  Europe  protected  by  Cromwell 
Restoration  of  Charles  II.  (1660);  how  effected 
The  Presbyterians  are  deceived  by  the  King 
The  Savoy  Conference  (1661)      . 
Ejection  of  the  Puritan  ministers  (1662) 
Demoralization  of  the  English  Court  . 
Alliance  of  Charles  II.  and  Louis  XIV,  (1670) 


Court 


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358 

359 
359 
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360 
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361 
361 
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362 
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366 

366 
368 
368 
369 
369 
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370 
371 
371 
371 
372 
372 
372 
373 
373 
374 
374 


CONTENTS 


Real  designs  of  Charles  betrayed 374 

James  II.  (1685-1688);   the  Court  of  High  Commission  (1686)    .         .  375 

He  endeavors  to  win  the  support  of  the  Puritans  (1687)      .         .         .  375 

The  Revolution  of  1688 375 

The  Act  of  Toleration 375 

Failure  of  the  Comprehension  Bill .  376 

Permanent  establishment  of  Presbyterianism  in  Scotland  (1690)          .  376 

Persecution  of  the  Covenanters  under  James  II. .         .         .         .         .  377 

Effect  of  Henry  IV.'s  death  (1589)  on  the  French  policy     .         .         .377 

Revolt  of  the  Huguenots  (1621);   its  causes  and  effect         .         .         .  378 

Louis  XIII.  (1610-1643);   the  aims  of  Richelieu  (1624-1642)      .         .  378 

His  domestic  policy;  his  destruction  of  the  Huguenot  power  (1628)  378 
Louis  XIV.   (1651-1715);    his  designs  in  respect  to   France  and  to 

foreign  powers       ..........  379 

The  Assembly  of  1682;    the  Four  Propositions  of  Galilean  liberty  380 

Adjustment  with  Innocent  XII.  (1691-1700);   the  work  of  Bossuet    .  380 

Jansenism 380 

Declining  reputation  of  the  Jesuits;   Pascal  (1623-1662)      .         .         .  381 

Suppression  of  Port  Royal  1710;  persecution  of  the  Jansenists  .  381 
Persecution  of  the  Huguenots;    Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 

(1685) 382 

Its  effect  on  France 383 

Wars  kindled  by  the  ambition  of  Louis  XIV 383 

William  of  Orange  (1650-1702),  his  antagonist 384 

The  result 384 

Prostration  of  the  Catholic  Reaction    .......  385 

Feebleness  of  the  Papacy 385 

Effect  of  the  persecution  of  the  Jansenists  on  the  Catholic  Church  385 

Approach  of  the  era  of  revolutions 385 


CHAPTER   XIII 


THE    PROTESTANT   THEOLOGY 


Two  fundamental  principles  of  Protestantism      .....  387 
No  controversy  between  the  two  parties  on  the  Trinity  and  Atone- 
ment       387 

Their  difference  on  the  doctrine  of  sin          ......  387 

The  Protestant  doctrine  of  justification        ......  388 

The  relation  of  ethics  to  religion 389 

Protestant  doctrine  of  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Scriptures           .  389 

Agreement  of  the  Protestant  Churches  on  this  point  ....  390 

The  two  Protestant  principles  unite  in  one ......  390 

Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  justification      ......  390 

The  Protestant  doctrine  respecting  the  Church    .         .         .         .         .391 

The  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  respecting  the  Church  ....  392 

Respecting  tradition 392 

Respecting  the  sacraments 393 

Sense  of  the  phrase,  ex  opere  operato           ......  393 

Modifications  of  the  Roman  Catholic  view 394 

Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  priesthood           .....  394 

Protestants  maintain  a  universal  priesthood  of  believers     .         .         .  395 


xxviu  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Protestant  view  of  the  number  and  design  of  the  sacraments      .         .  395 
Effect  of  the  Protestant  view  of  justification  upon  various  dogmas 

and  practices         ..........  395 

Protestant  controversies  on  predestination 397 

Arminianism  and  its  leaders  (1610)      .         .         .         .         .         .         .  398 

PoUtical  division  between  Arminians  and  Calvinists  in  Holland  .         .  399 

The  Synod  of  Dort  (1616) 399 

Arminian  view  of  original  sin  and  of  the  atonement    ....  399 

General  character  of  the  Arminian  theologians    .....  400 

The  Anabaptists 400 

The  Antitrinitarians  of  the  age  of  the  Reformation     .         .         .         .401 

Rise  of  Unitarianism  in  Italy 402 

Faustus  Socinus  (1539-1604) 402 

The  Socinian  theology 403 

Efforts  to  unite  Lutherans  and  Calvinists 404 

Efforts  to  unite  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics       ....  405 

The  endeavors  of  Grotius  (1642) 406 

His  doctrinal  position  ..........  406 

Leibnitz  and  Bossuet  ..........  407 

End  of  the  efforts  at  reunion 408 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    CONSTITUTION    OF   THE    PROTESTANT   CHURCHE8    AND   THEIR 
RELATION    TO    THE    CIVIL    AUTHORITY 


Organization  of  Protestantism  not  uniform  in  the  different  countries  410 

Protestants  united  in  opposing  Church  government  by  a  priesthood  410 
The  principles  of  Luther  respecting  Church  polity        .         .         .         .411 

Not  realized  and  why .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .411 

Luther  and  Melancthon  on  the  authority  of  civil  rulers  in  the  Church  411 
Two  characteristic  features  of  the  Lutheran  polity       .         .         .         .413 

Origin  of  consistories  ..........  413 

The  Synod  of  Romberg  in  Hesse          . 414 

Luther's  opinion  of  its  plan  of  Church  government      ....  415 

Ecclesiastical  government  by  princes  in  Lutheran  states      .         .         .  415 

Theories  on  which  it  was  founded 416 

Church  government  in  the  Reformed  Churches 416 

Zwingli's  system  ...........  416 

Calvin's  theory  of  Church  government         ......  417 

The  civil  authority  bound  to  suppress  error 417 

The  Presbyterian  constitution  in  France  and  in  Scotland    .         .         .  419 

The  Anglican  establishment         ........  420 

Various  theories;    Erastianism;    Hooker 420 

Warburton's  theory;   Coleridge's  theory 421 

Gladstone;   Chalmers;    Macaulay         .         .         ,         .         .         .         .  422 

Convocation  in  the  English  Church      .......  423 

Bellarmine  on  the  indirect  authority  of  the  Pope  in  relation  to  the 

temporal  power    ..........  425 

The  Jesuits  advocate  popular  sovereignty    ......  425 

Protestants  maintain  the  divine  right  of  kings 426 

The  system  of  the  New  England  colonists 426 


CONTENTS 


XXIX 


Distinction  between  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts 
The  New  England  Ecclesiastical  System 
Roger  Williams  advocates  religious  liberty  (circa  1635) 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States 


PAGE 

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428 


CHAPTER   XV 


THE  RELATION   OF  PROTESTANTISM  TO   CULTURE    AND   CIVILIZATION 

Necessary  to  consider  facts  in  connection  with  principles 

General  comparison  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  nations 

Passage  from  Macaulay         .... 

Passage  from  Carlyle   ..... 

Influence  of  Protestantism  upon  liberty 

Political  effects  of  the  Reformation 

What  Protestantism  did  for  hberty  in  Europe 

In  the  United  States    ..... 

Protestants  have  been  guilty  of  persecution 

This  admitted  to  be  inconsistent  with  their  principles 

Roman  Catholics,  how  far  responsible  now  for  persecution 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  literature  and  science 

The  complaints  of  Erasmus  ..... 

EflFect  of  the  extinction  of  Protestantism  in  Spain 

Loss  of  intellectual  freedom  and  activity     . 

Effect  of  the  extinction  of  Protestantism  in  Italy 

Decline  of  literature  and  art         ..... 

Persecution  of  Galileo  ..... 

The  grounds  of  his  condemnation 

Literature  in  France     ..... 

The  Prohibitory  and  Expurgatory  Indexes . 

Effect  of  the  censorship  of  books,  on  Italy  . 

Censorship  of  books  in  Protestant  countries 

The  press  in  the  Puritan  period;    Milton 

The  press  after  the  Restoration   . 

Education  by  the  Jesuits  and  their  scholarship 

The  reading  of  the  Bible;    policy  of  the  Church  of  Rome 

Why  the  laity  first  neglected  the  Bible 

Intellectual  effect  of  the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  Protestant  countries 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  English  Literature    . 

Religious  tone  of  Elizabethan  writers  .... 

Effect  of  the  Reformation  on  the  German  intellect 

Its  intellectual  effect  in  Holland  and  Scotland     . 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Philosophy 

The  Reformers'  opinion  of  Aristotle     .... 

Renovation  of  philosophy  by  Bacon  and  Des  Cartes    . 

Bacon's  tendency  congenial  with  Protestantism  . 

The  Cartesian  method  in  contrast  with  the  Mediaeval . 

Personal  history  and  relations  of  Des  Cartes  (1596-1650) 

His  system  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  other  sciences    . 

Protestantism  and  the  Fine  Arts  .... 

Comparison  of  the  German  and  the  Latin  nations 


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438 
438 
438 
439 
439 
440 
440 
441 
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448 
448 
449 
450 
451 
451 
452 
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454 
454 


X^ 


XXX  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

Art  in  the  Netherlands 455 

Eflfect  of  the  Reformation  on  Religion         ......  455 

Religion  essential  to  civilization  ........  455 

Origin  of  infidelity  in  Europe 456 

Protestant  dogmatism  provokes  a  revolt      ......  456 

This  is  carried  to  an  extreme 457 

Rise  and  spread  of  Deism 457 

Transition  to  Pantheism       .........  457 

Skepticism  in  Roman  Catholic  countries 457 

German  Rationalism;    its  two  forms    .......  458 

Rise  of  the  Critical  School 458 

Deistic  and  Pantheistic  Rationalism 459 

Schleiermacher     .          ..........  459 

Neander  on  the  origin  and  types  of  Rationalism           ....  459 

Multiplying  of  Protestant  sects 460 

Its  effects 461 

Source  of  these  divisions 461 

Tendency  to  unity 462 

Principle  of  progress  in  Protestantism 462 

Protestant  and  Catholic  Missions 462 

Christianity  not  hostile  to  culture        .......  463 

Error  of  the  Middle  Ages 464 

Protestantism  avoids  it 464 


APPENDIX 

I.  A  Chronological  Table 465 

II.  A  List  of  Books  on  the  Reformation    .....  475 

INDEX 503 


THE  REFORMATION 

CHAPTER  I 

INTEODUCTION :  THE  GENEEAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  REFORMATION 

The  four  most  prominent  epochs  of  modern  history  are  the 
invasion  of  the  barbarians,  which  blended  the  German  and 
Roman  elements  of  civilization,  and  subjected  the  new  nations 
to  the  influence  of  Christianity;  the  crusades,  which  broke  up 
the  stagnation  of  European  society,  and  by  inflicting  a  blow 
upon  the  feudal  system  opened  a  path  for  the  centralization  of 
the  nations  and  governments  of  Europe;  the  Reformation,  in 
which  religion  was  purified  and  the  human  mind  emancipated 
from  sacerdotal  control;  and  the  French  Revolution,  a  tre- 
mendous struggle  for  political  equality.  The  Reformation, 
like  these  other  great  social  commotions,  was  long  in  prepara- 
tion. Of  the  French  Revolution,  the  last  upon  the  list  of  his- 
torical epochs  of  capital  importance,  De  Tocqueville  observes: 
"It  was  least  of  all  a  fortuitous  event.  It  is  true  that  it  took 
the  world  by  surprise;  and  yet  it  was  only  the  completion  of 
travail  most  prolonged,  the  sudden  and  violent  termination  of 
a  work  on  which  ten  generations  had  been  laboring."  ^  The 
method  of  Providence  in  history  is  never  magical.  In  propor- 
tion to  the  magnitude  of  the  catastrophe  are  the  length  of  time 
and  the  variety  of  agencies  which  are  concerned  in  producing 
it.  Events,  because  they  are  unexpected  and  startling,  are  not 
to  be  ascribed  merely  to  some  proximate  antecedent.  The 
causes,  like  the  consequences,  are  apt  to  be  protractedr.  The 
Protestant  movement  is  often  looked  upon  as  hardly  less  pre- 
ternatural and  astonishing  than  would  be  the  rising  of  the  sun 
at  midnight.     But  the  more  it  is  examined,  the  less  does  it  wear 

*  Ancien  Regime  et  la  Revolution  (7th  ed.,  1866),  p.  31. 
1 


■I  THE   REFORMATION 

this  mary^pus  aspect.  In  truth,  never  was  a  historical  crisis 
more  elaborately  'prepared,  and  this  through  a  train  of  causes 
which, rr  ch. back' iuto  thft;  remote  past.  Nor  is  it  the  fact  that 
such-  •ehts-'are  wlioll'^;  out  of  the  reach  of  human  foresight; 
they  cast  their  shadows  before;  they  are  the  object  of  presenti- 
ments more  or  less  distinct,  sometimes  of  definite  prediction.^ 

But  in  avoiding  one  extreme  we  are  not  to  fall  into  the  oppo- 
site. We  must  take  into  account  the  personal  qualities  and 
the  plastic  agency  of  individuals  not  less  than  the  operation  of 
general  causes.  Especially  if  a  revolution  in  long-established 
opinions  and  habits  of  feeling  is  to  take  place,  there  must  be 
individuals  to  rally  upon;  men  of  power  who  are  able  to  create 
and  sustain  in  others  a  new  moral  life  which  they  have  first 
sTealized  in  themselves. 

Notwithstanding  that  three  centuries  have  since  elapsed, 
the  real  origin  and  significance  of  the  Reformation  remain  a 
subject  of  controversy.  The  rapid  spread  of  Luther's  opinions 
was  attributed  by  at  least  one  of  his  contemporaries  "to  a 
certain  uncommon  and  malignant  position  of  the  stars,  which 
scattered  the  spirit  of  giddiness  and  innovation  over  the  world."  ^ 
Although  the  astrological  solution  has  no  advocates  left,  it  was 
not  wholly  implausible  in  that  age  when  the  ancient  art  of 
foretelling  the  future  by  an  inspection  of  the  stars  counted  among 
its  believers  so  accomplished  a  scholar  as  Melancthon,  a  states- 
man as  sagacious  as  Burleigh,  and  a  far-sighted  ecclesiastic 
like  Pope  Paul  III.,  "who  appointed  no  important  sitting  of 
the  consistory,  undertook  no  journey,  without  observing  the 
constellations  and  choosing  the  day  which  appeared  to  him 
recommended  by  their  aspect."  ^ 

•  Twenty  years  before  the  accession  of  Louis  XVI.,  Lord  Chesterfield  wrote : 
"In  short,  all  the  symptoms  which  I  have  ever  met  with  in  history,  previous  to 
great  changes  and  revolutions  in  government,  now  exist  and  daily  increase  in 
France."  Chesterfield's  Letters  (Dec.  25,  1753);  quoted  by  Carlyle,  History  of 
the  French  Revolution,  ch.  ii.  In  the  fifteenth  century,  there  were  able  men  who 
looked  forward  to  an  ecclesiastical  revolution.  Cardinal  Julian  Caesarini,  who 
as  papal  legate  presided  at  the  Council  of  Basle,  in  a  letter  to  Pope  Eugene  IV., 
in  1431,  predicted  a  great  uprising  of  the  laity  for  the  overthrow  of  a  corrupt 
clergy,  and  a  here.sy  more  formidable  than  that  of  the  Bohemians.  Epist.  I. 
Julian,  Card.,  in  the  Opera  jEnece  Sylvii,  p.  66.  It  is  given  in  part  by  Raynaldus, 
1431,  No.  22:   extracts  in  Gieseler,  Period,  in.  v.  c.  1,  §  132,  n.  6. 

2  Jovius,  Historia,  Lut.  1553,  p.  134;  quoted  by  Robertson,  History  of  Charles 
v.,  book  ii. 

*  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes  (Mrs.  Austin's  transl.),  i.  249,  263.  On  the 
influence  of  astrology  in  Italy,  from  the  thirteenth  century,  see  Burckhardt,  Die 


THEORIES   RESPECTING   THE    REFORMATION 

But  other  explanations  of  the  Protestant  movement,  -which 
are  hardly  less  imaginary  and  inadequate,  have  been  gravely 
suggested.  When  the  reigning  Pope,  Leo  X.,  heard  of  the 
commotion  that  had  arisen  in  Saxony,  he  spoke  of  it  as  i  '•nuabble 
of  monks.  This  judgment,  which,  considering  the  ti.  and 
the  source  from  which  it  came,  may  not  occasion  much  surprise, 
is  reechoed  by  writers  so  antagonistic  to  one  another  in  their 
spirit  as  Bossuet  and  Voltaire:  one  the  champion  of  the  anti- 
protestant  theology,  and  the  other  the  leader  of  the  party  of 
free-thinkers  in  the  eighteenth  century.^  Even  a  later  German 
historian,  a  learned  as  well  as  brilliant  writer,  speaks  of  the  Ref- 
ormation as  an  academical  quarrel  that  served  as  a  nucleus  for 
all  the  discontent  of  a  turbulent  age.^*^It  is  true  that  an  Augus- 
tinian  monk  began  the  conflict  by  assailing  certain  practices 
of  a  Dominican,  that  each  found  much  support  in  his  own  order, 
and  that  the  rival  universities  of  Wittenberg  and  Leipsic  en- 
listed on  opposite  sides  in  the  strife.  But  these  are  mere  inci- 
dents. To  bring  them  forward  as  principal  causes  of  a  mighty 
historic  change,  is  a  little  short  of  trifling.^t-  A  class  of  persons 
dispose  of  the  whole  question  in  a  simmiary  manner  by  calling 

Cultur  d.  Renaissance  in  Italien,  p.  512  seq.  In  vain  was  it  attacked  by  Petrarch 
and,  in  common  with  alchemy,  denounced  by  some  of  the  Popes.  Melancthon 
professes  his  faith  in  astrology.  Corpus  Reformatorum,  iii.  516.  But  the  free- 
thinking  Pomponazzi,  and  the  celebrated  publicist  Bodin,  shared  in  this  credu- 
lity. (See  Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,  i.  284.)  Cecil  consulted 
astrology  respecting  Queen  Elizabeth's  marriage.  In  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  famous  astrologist,  Nostradamus,  was  patronized  by  Henry  II.  and  Charles 
IX.,  and  was  visited  in  his  retreat  at  Salon  by  persons  of  the  highest  distinction. 
Even  the  great  astronomers,  Tycho  Brahe  and  Kepler,  did  not  give  up  the  faith 
in  astrology.  The  latter,  from  a  study  of  the  constellations  under  which  Wallen- 
stein  was  born,  described  his  character  (Ranke,  Geschichte  W  alien  steins,  p.  1). 
Wallenstein's  own  devotion  to  astrology  is  made  familiar  by  the  dramas  of  Schiller. 
Lord  Bacon,  although  he  pronounces  astrology  "so  full  of  superstition  that  scarce 
anything  sound  can  be  discovered  in  it,"  would  still  "rather  have  it  purified 
than  altogether  rejected,"  and  admits  into  "Sane  Astrology,"  predictions  of 
seditions,  schisms,  and  "all  commotions  or  greater  revolutions  of  things,  natural 
as  well  as  civil."  De  Aug.  Scient.,  iii.  iv.  It  is  only  as  a  branch  of  physics  and  on 
the  basis  of  induction,  however,  that  he  allows  any  place  for  astrologJ^ 

'  Voltaire,  Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,  ch.  127,  Diet.  Phil.  (Art.  Climat)  ;  Bossuet, 
Variations  des  Prot. ;  (Euvres,  v.  521.  The  same  thing  is  said  by  Hume.  "Mar- 
tin Luther,  an  Austin  friar,  professor  in  the  University  of  Wittenberg,  resenting 
the  affront  put  upon  his  order,"   etc.     History  of  England,  ch.  xxix. 

^  Leo,    Universalgeschichte,   iii.   c.   2. 

*  There  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  the  notion  that  Luther  was  actuated  by 
resentment  at  a  slight  upon  his  order.  As  if  the  disposal  of  indulgences  were  an 
honor  that  he  coveted !  But  is  it  not  true  that  this  business  had  been  usually 
given  to  the  Augustinians  ?  See  Pallavicini,  lib.  i.  c.  3,  §  7  ;  Waddington,  History  of 
the  Reformation,  i.  134.  The  origin  of  this  imputation  of  jealousy  is  traced  by 
Gieseler,  Church  History,  iv.  i.  1  §  1,  n.  17. 


4  THE  REFORMATION 

the  Reformation  a  new  phase  of  the  old  conflict  which  the  Popes 
had  waged  with  the  Hohenstaufen  Emperors;  of  the  struggle 
between  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authority.  But  the  Reformation 
^was  not  confined  to  Germany:  it  was  a  European  movement 
that  involved  a  religious  revolution  in  the  Teutonic  nations,  and 
powerfully  affected  the  character  and  destiny  of  the  Romanic 
peoples  among  which  it  failed  to  triumph.  Moreover,  while 
-  the  political  side  of  the  Reformation  is  of  great  importance, 
both  in  the  investigation  of  the  causes  and  effects  of  Protes- 
tantism, this  is  far  from  being  the  exclusive  or  even  predominant 
element  in  the  problem.  Political  agencies  were  rather  an 
efficient  auxiliary  than  a  direct  and  principal  cause. 

Guizot  has  presented  his  views  respecting  the  nature  of  the 
Reformation,  in  a  lecture  devoted  to  this  topic.^  The  Refor- 
mation, in  his  judgment,  was  an  effort  to  deliver  human  reason 
from  the  bonds  of  authority;  "it  was  an  insurrection  of  the 
human  mind  against  the  absolute  power  of  the  spiritual  order." 
It  was  not  an  accident,  the  result  of  some  casual  circumstance; 
}t  was  not  simply  an  effort  to  purify  the  Church.  The  com- 
'prehensive  and  most  powerful  cause  was  the  desire  of  the  human 
/  mind  for  freedom.  Free  thought  and  inquiry  are  the  legitimate 
product,  the  real  intent  of  the  movement.  Such  is  Guizot's 
interpretation.  But  he  is  careful  to  add  that  his  definition  does 
not  describe  the  conscious  purpose  of  the  actors  who  achieved 
the  revolution.  The  Reformation,  he  says,  "in  this  respect 
performed  more  than  it  undertook,  —  more,  probably,  than  it 
desired."  "In  point  of  fact,  it  produced  the  prevalence  of  free 
inquiry;  in  point  of  principle,  it  believed  that  it  was  substi- 
tuting a  legitimate  for  an  illegitimate  power."  The  distinction 
between  the  conscious  aims  of  the  leaders  in  a  revolution,  and 
the  real  drift  and  ultimate  effect  of  their  work;  between  the 
direct  end  which  they  endeavor  to  secure,  and  the  deeper,  hidden 
impulse,  the  undercurrent  by  which  they  are  really  impelled, 
is  one  that  is  proper  to  be  made.  It  would  appear  evident, 
also,  that  the  overthrow  of  the  authority  of  the  Church  must 
affect  the  principle  of  authority  in  general;  so  far,  at  least, 
as  eventually  to  lead  to  a  scrutiny  of  the  foundations  of  author- 
ity wherever  it  is  assumed  to  exist.  Yet  we  venture  to  consider 
the  interpretation  of  Guizot  defective  as  confining  the  import 

'  General  History  of  Civilization  in  Europe,  lect.  xii. 


THEORIES   RESPECTING   THE   REFORMATION  5 

and  effect  of  the  Reformation  within  too  narrow  Hmits.  The 
Reformation  claimed  to  be  a  reform  of  reHgion;  it  was  certainly 
a  religious  revolution;  and  religion  is  so  great  a  concern  of 
man  and  so  deep  and  pervasive  in  its  influence,  that  this  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  the  Reformation  must  be  held  to  belong  to 
its  essential  character.  In  other  words,  the  ultimate  motive 
and  final  effect  is  not  liberty  alone,  but  the  improvement  of 
religion  likewise. V 

^  There  is  a  class  of  writers  who  would  make  the  Reformation 
a  transitional  era  paving  the  way  for  free-thinking  or  unbelief. 
We  might  say  that  there  are  two  disparate  classes  who  advo- 
cate this  view.  On  the  one  hand,  Roman  Cathohc  writers  have 
frequently  declared  Protestantism  the  natural  parent  of  Ration- 
alism; and  on  the  other  hand,  Rationalists  themselves,  who 
reject  Christianity  as  revealed,  an  authoritative  system,  have 
applauded  the  Reformation  as  a  step  toward  their  position. 
Both  classes  of  critics  proceed  on  the  assumption,  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  is  so  far  coincident  with  the  mediaeval  system,  that 
the  fall  of  the  latter  logically  carries  with  it  the  downfall  of  the 
former.  Time  was  required  for  these  latent  tendencies  of  Prot- 
estantism to  develop  themselves;  they  were  hidden  from  the 
eyes  of  the  Reformers  themselves;  but,  it  is  alleged,  they  have 
since  become  apparent.  This  character  was  imputed  to  Protes- 
tantism, on  its  first  appearance,  by  its  enemies,  and  is  often 
charged  upon  it  by  its  theological  adversaries  at  the  present 
day.^  Thus,  Balmes,  the  author  of  an  extended  work  on  the 
comparative  effects  of  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  upon 
civilization,  maintains  that  the  system  which  he  opposes  leads 
to  atheism.^  Another  recent  Roman  Catholic  writer  affirms, 
that  "the  principle  of  RationaHsm  is  inherent  in  the  very  nature 
of  Protestantism."  *   For  the  opinions  of  the  free- thinking  school 

'  Elsewhere  Guizot  himself  says  that  the  Reformation  was  essentially  and 
from  the  very  first  a  religious  reform;  and  that,  as  to  politics,  "they  were  its 
necessary  means  but  not  its  chief  aim."  —  St.  Louis  and  Calvin,  p.  150. 

2  Montaigne  states  that  his  father  began  to  instruct  his  family  in  natural 
theology,  on  the  first  appearance  of  Protestantism,  from  the  belief  that  it  would 
lead  to  atheism.  —  Essais,  ii.  xii. 

'  Protestantism  and  Catholicism  compared  in  their  Effects  on  the  Civilization 
of  Europe  (English  translation,  Baltimore,  1851),  p.  60,  and  the  note,  p.  428. 

*  J.  B.  Robertson,  Esq.,  in  the  Life  of  Dr.  J.  A.  Mohler,  prefixed  to  the  Eng- 
lish translation  of  Mohler's  Symbolism,  p.  xxxiii.  But  Mohler  himself  appears 
to  dissent  from  the  usual  Catholic  representation  on  this  point,  and  to  regard 
Rationalism   as    the    opposite    of    primitive    Protestantism.     Part    ii.   §  liv.     In 


6  THE  REFORMATION 

on  this  point,  we  may  refer  to  the  series  of  historical  works  by 
M.  Laurent,  which  contain  much  valuable  information,  espe- 
^^-cialTy  upon  the  Middle  Ages/  This  writer  holds  that  Christian- 
ity itself  is  to  give  place  to  a  rehgion  of  the  future,  the  precise 
character  of  which  he  does  not  pretend  to  describe.  He  declares 
that  revealed  religion  stands  or  falls  with  the  Papacy,  and  that 
Protestantism  "leads  to  the  denial  of  the  fundamental  dogmas 
of  historical  Christianity."  ^  He  hails  the  Reformation  as  an 
intermediate  stage  in  the  progress  of  mankind  to  that  higher 
plane  where  Christianity  is  to  be  superseded.  Whether  Prot- 
estantism fosters  infidelity  or  not  is  a  question  which  can  be 
more  intelligently  considered  hereafter.  It  may  be  observed 
here,  however,  that  the  Reformers  themselves  considered  that 
their  work  arrested  the  progress  of  unbelief  and  saved  the  re- 
ligion of  Europe.  Luther  says  that  such  were  the  ecclesiastical 
abuses  in  Germany  that  frightful  disorders  would  infalHbly  have 
arisen,  that  all  rehgion  w^ould  have  perished,  and  Christians 
have  become  Epicureans.^  The  infidehty  that  had  taken  root 
and  sprung  up  in  the  strongholds  of  the  Church,  in  connection 
with  the  revival  of  classical  learning,  threatened  to  spread  over 
Europe.  Melancthon,  in  a  familiar  letter  to  a  friend,  affirms 
that  far  more  serious  disturbances  —  "longe  graviores  tumul- 
tus"  —  would  have  broken  out,  if  Luther  had  not  appeared  and 
turned  the  studies  of  men  in  another  direction.*  The  Reforma- 
tion brought  a  revival  of  religious  feeling,  and  resulted,  by  a 
reactionary  influence,  in  a  great  quickening  of  rehgious  zeal 
within  the  CathoHc  body.  Laurent  himself  elsewhere  affirms 
that  in  the  sixteenth  century  rehgion  was  in  a  state  of  decadence 
and  threatened  with  ruin ;  ^  that  Luther  effected  a  rehgious  revo- 
lution in  the  mind  of  an  age  that  was  inchned  to  infidehty  and 
moving  toward  it  at  a  rapid  pace ;  ^  that  he  was  a  reformer  for 
CathoHcism  as  well  as  for  Protestantism ;  that  the  Reformation 


another  place,  however,  he  finds  in  pantheism  a  logical  result  of  Protestant  views 
of  predestination.   §  27. 

*  The  title  of  the  series  is  Etudes  sur  I'Histoire  de  I'Humanite,  par  F.  Lau- 
rent, Professeur  k.  I'Universit^  de  Gand. 

*  "Le   protestantisme  conduit  k  la  negation  des  dogmes  fondamentaux   du 
christianisme  historique." —  La  Papauti  et  I'Empiri  (Paris,  1860),  p.  41. 

3  De  Wette,  Luther's  Briefe,  iii.  439. 

*  Ad  Camerarium  (1529),  Corpus  Ref.,  i.  1083.     See  the  remarks  of  Neander, 
Wissenschaftliche  Abhandl.,  p.  62. 

*  La  Riforme,  p.  447.  6  /^{^.^  p.  434. 


THE   REFORMATION   PRIMARILY    RELIGIOUS  7 

was  the  foe  of  infidelity  and  saved  the  Christian  world  from  it. 
But  we  cannot  pursue  the  topic  in  this  place.  Let  it  suffice 
here  to  interpose  a  warning  against  incautious  generalization. 

The  Reformation,  whatever  may  have  been  its  latent  ten- 
dencies and  ulterior  consequences,  was  an  event  within  the 
W/^  domain  of  rehgion.  From  this  point  of  view  it  must  first,  and 
prior  to  all  speculation  upon  its  indirect  or  collateral  or  remote 
results,  be  contemplated. 

What  was  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  this  revolution  ? 
Before,  a  vast  institution  had  been  interposed  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  objects  of  religious  faith  and  hope.  The  Refor- 
mation changed  all  this;  it  opened  to  the  individual  a  direct 
''access  to  the  heavenly  good  proffered  him  in  the  Gospel. 

The  German  nations  which  established  themselves  on  the 
ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire,  received  Christianity  with  docility. 
But  it  was  a  Christianity,  which,  though  it  retained  vital  ele- 
ments of  the  primitive  doctrine,  had  become  transformed  into 
an  external  theocracy  with  its  priesthood  and  ceremonies.  It 
was  under  this  mixed  system,  this  combination  of  the  Gospel 
with  characteristic  features  of  the  Judaic  dispensation,  that  the 
new  nations  were  trained.  Such  a  type  of  Christianity  had 
certain  advantages  in  relation  to  their  uncivilized  condition. 
Its  externality,  the  legal  character  stamped  on  its  theology  as 
well  as  its  organization,  together  with  its  gorgeous  ritual,  gave 
it  a  peculiar  power  over  them.  But  all  through  the  Middle 
Ages,  whilst  the  outward,  theocratic  element  that  had  been 
grafted  on  Christianity  developed  itself  more  and  more  in  the 
poHty  and  worship  of  the  Church,  the  reactionary  operation  of 
the  primitive,  spiritual  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  charac- 
teristic of  the  Gospel,  was  likewise  more  and  more  manifest. 
Within  the  stately  and  imposing  fabric  of  the  ecclesiastical 
system,  there  was  a  force  imprisoned,  as  it  were,  struggling  for 
freedom,  and  gradually  acquiring  strength  sufficient  to  break 
down  the  wall  that  confined  it.  "The  Reformation,  viewed  in 
its  most  general  character,  was  the  reaction  of  Christianity  as 
Gospel  against  Christianity  as  law,"  *  It  must  also  be  remem- 
bered that  with  the  traditional  form  of  Christianity  "there  was 
handed  down,  in  the  sacred  text  itself,  a  source  of  divine  knowl- 
edge not  exposed  in  like  manner  to  corruption,  from  which  the 

•  Ullman,  Reformatoren  vor  der  Reformation,  i.  p.  xiii. 


8  THE  REFORMATION 

Church  might  learn  how  to  distinguish  primitive  Christianity 
from  all  subsequent  additions,  and  so  carry  forward  the  work  of 
purifying  the  Christian  consciousness  to  its  entire  completion."  * 

Protestantism,  therefore,  had  a  positive  as  well  as  a  negative 
side.  It  had  something  to  assert  as  well  as  something  to  deny. 
If  it  discarded  one  interpretation  of  Christianity,  it  espoused 
another.  Old  beliefs  were  subverted,  not  as  an  effect  of  a  mere 
passion  for  revolt,  but  through  the  expulsive  power  of  deeper 
convictions,  a  purer  apprehension  of  truth.  The  Uberty  which 
the  Reformers  prized  first  and  chiefly  was  not  the  abstract  right 
to  choose  one's  creed  without  constraint,  but  a  Uberty  that  flows 
from  the  unforced  appropriation,  by  the  soul,  of  truth  in  harmony 
with  its  inmost  nature  and  its  conscious  necessities. 

It  is  evident,  also,  from  the  foregoing  statement,  that  in 
Protestantism  there  was  an  objective  as  well  as  a  subjective 
factor.  The  new  type  of  rehgion,  deeply  rooted  though  it  was 
in  subjective  impulses  and  convictions,  owed  its  being  to  the 
direct  contact  of  the  mind  with  the  Scriptures.  In  them  it 
found  alike  its  source  and  its  regulative  norm.  This  distin- 
guishes Protestantism,  historically  considered,  from  all  move- 
ments on  the  plane  of  natural  rehgion,  and  stamps  upon  it  a 
distinctively  Christian  character.  The  new  spiritual  life  had 
consciously  its  fountain-head  in  the  writings  of  the  Prophets 
and  Apostles.  There  was  no  pretense  of  devising  a  new  rehgion, 
but  only  of  reforming  the  old,  according  to  its  own  authorita- 
tive standards. 

Yet  the  Protestant  Reformers,  in  transferring  their  allegiance 
from  the  Church  to  the  Word  of  God,  practically  asserted  a 
right  of  private  judgment.  Their  proceeding  was  founded  on 
a  subjective,  personal  conviction.  Deny  to  the  individual  this 
ultimate  prerogative  of  decichng  where  authority  in  matters  of 
rehgion  is  rightfully  placed,  and  then  what  the  acknowledged 
rule  of  faith  means,  and  their  whole  movement  becomes  in- 
l^defensible,  irrational.  Hence  intellectual  liberty,  freedom  of 
thought  and  inquiry,  was  a  consequence  of  the  Reformation, 
that  could  not  fail  to  be  eventually  reahzed. 

But  while  the  Reformation  in  its  distinctive  character  is  a 

*  Neander,  General  History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church  (Torrey's 
transl.),  iii-  1  seq.  The  view  taken  in  the  paragraph  above  substantially  ac- 
cords with  that  of  Neander  in  the  passage  referred  to. 


THE   REFORMATION   NOT   AN    ISOLATED   EVENT  9 

religious  event,  it  is  not  an  isolated  phenomenon.  It  is  a  part 
and  fruit -of  that  general  progress  of  society  which  marks  the 
fifteenth  century  and  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  as  the  period 
of  transition  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  modern  civiUzation/  This 
was  the  period  of  inventions  and  discoveries ;  when  the  magnetic 
compass  coming  into  general  use  enabled  adventurous  mariners 
to  steer  their  vessels  into  remote  seas ;  when  gunpowder  revolu- 
tionized the  art  of  war  by  hfting  the  peasant  to  the  level  of  the 
knight;  when  printing  by  movable  types  furnished  a  new  and 
marvelous  means  of  diffusing  knowledge.  It  was  the  era  of 
great  nautical  discoveries ;  when  Columbus  added  another  hemi- 
sphere to  the  world  as  known  to  Europeans,  and  Vasco  da  Gama, 
sailing  to  India  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  opened  a  new 
highway  for  commerce.  It  was  likewise  the  era  when  the 
heavens  were  explored,  and  Copernicus  discovered  the  true 
astronomic  system  of  the  universe.  Then,  also,  the  master- 
pieces of  ancient  sculpture  and  the  literary  treasures  of  antiquity 
were  brought  forth  from  their  tombs.  It  was  the  period  of  a 
new  hfe  in  art,  the  age  of  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo,  of  Leo- 
nardo da  Vinci  and  Albert  Diirer.  The  revived  study  of  Greek 
and  Latin  hterature  was  directing  intellectual  activity  into  new 
channels.  Equally  momentous  was  the  change  in  the  political 
life  of  Europe.  Monarchy  having  gained  the  victory  over  feu- 
dalism, each  of  the  principal  kingdoms,  especially  France,  Spain, 
and  England,  was  becoming  consolidated.  The  invasion  of  Italy 
by  Charles  VIII.,  in  1494,  commenced  the  wars  of  which  Italy 
was  at  once  the  theater  arid  the  prize,  and  the  conflicts  of  the 
European  States  for  the  acquisition  of  territory  or  of  ascend- 
ency over  one  another.  To  the  intercourse  of  nations  by  means 
of  commerce,  which  had  spread  from  Venice,  Genoa,  and  the 
towns  of  the  Hanseatic  League,  through  the  rest  of  Western 
Europe,  was  added  the  intercourse  of  diplomacy.  A  state- 
system  was  growing  up,  in  which  the  several  peoples  were  more 
closely  connected  by  poHtical  relations.  In  the  various  changes 
by  which  the  transitional  era  is  characterized,  the  Romanic 
peoples  on  the  whole  took  the  lead.  But  the  Reformation  in 
religion  was  not  their  work. 

'  Weber,  Weltgeschichte,  ix.  307.  Duruy,  Hist,  des  Temps  Modernes  (1453- 
1789),  p.  1  seq.  J.  I.  Ritter,  Kirchengeschichte,  p.  142  seq.  Humboldt,  Cosmos 
(Bohn's  ed.),  ii.  601,  673,  683. 


10  THE  REFORMATION 

As  Protestantism  in  its  origin  was  not  an  isolated  event,  so 
it  drew  after  it  political  and  social  changes  of  the  highest  mo- 
ment. Hence  it  presents  a  twofold  aspect.  On  the  one  hand, 
it  is  a  transformation  in  the  Church,  in  which  are  involved  con- 
tests of  theologians,  modifications  of  creed  and  ritual,  new  sys- 
tems of  poHty,  an  altered  type  of  Christian  life.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  a  great  transaction,  in  which  sovereigns  and  nations 
bear  a  part;  the  occasion  of  wars  and  treaties;  the  close  of  an 
old  and  the  introduction  of  a  new  period  in  the  history  of  culture 
and  civilization. 

The  era  of  the  Reformation,  if  we  give  to  the  term  this  com- 
prehensive meaning,  embraces  the  interval  between  the  posting 
of  Luther's  Theses,  in  1517,  and  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia,  in  1648. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  PAPAL  HIERARCHY  AND  ITS  DECLINE  THROUGH 
THE    CENTRALIZATION    OF   NATIONS 

One  essential  part  of  Protestantism  was  the  abolition  of  the 
authority  of  the  hierarchical  order.  Bossuet  has  remarked  that 
if  it  is  only  abuses  in  the  Church  that  separate  Protestants  from 
Catholics,  these  abuses  can  be  remedied,  and  thus  the  ground 
of  the  existence  of  the  schism  is  taken  away.^  But  to  say  that 
the  Reformation  began  in  a  protest  against  abuses  of  adminis- 
tration is  simply  to  say  that  Protestantism  was  not  full-grown 
at  the  start.  In  its  mature  form,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the 
Reformation  was  a  rejection  of  papal  and  priestly  authority. 
/In  studying  the  movement,  this  is  one  of  the  main  points  to 
bdiich  attention- -must  be  directed.  In  inquiring  into  the  causes 
of  the  Reformation,  therefore,  we  shall  first  review  the  rise  and 
progress  of  the  hierarchical  system,  and  show  how  it  had  been 
weakened  in  the  period  immediately  antecedent  to  the  sixteenth 
century.  We  shall  then  contemplate  a  variety  of  facts  which 
betokened  a  religious  revolution  and  contributed  to  produce  it. 

The  idea  of  the  authority  of  the  sacerdotal  order  is  separable 
from  the  idea  of  papal  supremacy  within  it.  Yet,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  many  of  the  causes  that  tended  to  the  overthrow  of  faith 
in  the  latter  doctrine,  operated  Hkewise  to  undermine  the  former. 
The  keystone  of  the  arch  could  not  be  loosened  without  affecting 
the  stability  of  the  whole  structure.     In  the  present  chapter,  the 

^  The  extent  of  these  abuses  before  the  Reformation  is  admitted  by  the  highest 
Catholic  authorities.  Bellarmine  says:  "Annis  aliquot,  antequam  Lutherana 
et  Calvinistiea  hieresis  oriretur,  nulla  ferme  erat,  ut  ii  testantur,  qui  etiam  tunc 
virebant,  nulla  (inquam)  prope  erat  in  judiciis  ecclesiasticis  severitas,  nulla  in 
moribus  disciplina,  nulla  in  sacris  literis  eruditio,  nulla  in  rebus  divinis  reveren- 
tia,  nulla  propemodum  jam  erat  religio."  Opera,  vi.  296;  or  Gerdesius,  Hist. 
Evang.  renovati,  i.  25.  Pope  Adrian  VI.  confessed  to  the  Diet  of  Nuremberg 
in  1522  that  the  deepest  corruption  had  infected  the  Holy  See  and  spread  thence 
through  the  lower  ranks  of  the  clergy.  Raynaldus,  Annales,  ann.  1522,  No.  66; 
or  Sleidan,  1.  iv.  See,  also,  Bossuet,  Variations  des  Prot.,  livr.  i.  {CEuvres,  v.  519). 
The  Letters  of  Erasmus  abound  in  corroborative  testimonies. 

11 


12  THE  REFORMATION 

rise  and  decline  of  the  papal  dominion  will  be  the  main  subject 
of  attention;  and  in  treating  of  the  second  branch  of  the  topic, 
the  decline  of  the  Papacy,  we  shall  direct  attention  in  particular 
to  the  influence  of  a  certain  cause  which  may  be  denominated 
the  spirit  of  nationaUsm. 

The  religion  of  the  old  dispensation  is  declared  in  the  Old 
Testament  itself,  by  the  prophets,  to  be  rudimental  and  intro- 
ductory to  a  more  spiritual  system.  This  character  of  inward- 
ness belongs  to  the  reHgion  of  Christ,  which,  for  this  reason,  is 
fitted  to  be  universal.  Worship  is  set  free  from  legal  restric- 
tions of  a  formal  cast,  and  from  the  external  and  sensuous 
characteristics  of  the  Jewish  ritual.  In  one  grand  feature,  espe- 
cially, is  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament  distinguished  from 
the  preparatory  system  —  the  absence  of  a  mediatorial  priest- 
hood. The  disciples  were  to  form  a  community  of  brethren, 
who  should  be  associated  on  a  footing  of  equality,  all  of  them 
being  illuminated  and  directed,  as  well  as  united,  by  the  one 
Spirit.  The  persevering  efforts  of  the  judaizing  party  to  pre- 
serve the  distinctive  features  of  the  Jewish  system  and  foist 
them  upon  the  Church,  failed.  The  true,  cathoUc  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Gospel,  as  giving  liberty  to  the  soul  and  direct  access 
to  God  through  the  one  high-priest  who  supersedes  all  other 
priestly  mediation  —  that  interpretation  to  which  all  of  the 
Apostles  assented  in  principle,  but  of  which  Paul  was  so  clear 
and  steadfast  an  expounder  —  prevailed  in  the  Christian  so- 
cieties that  were  early  scattered  over  the  Roman  Empire.  Their 
organization  was  simple.  The  idea  of  one  body  in  which,  while 
all  the  members  serve  each  other,  they  are  still  adapted  to  dif- 
ferent functions,  for  which  they  are  severally  designated  by  the 
ruling  principle  —  which,  in  the  case  of  the  Church,  is  the  Divine 
Spirit  —  lay  at  the  root.  As  was  natural,  all  of  the  Christians 
in  a  town  were  united  in  one  society,  or  ecclesia,  the  old  Greek 
term  for  an  assembly  legally  called  and  summoned.  In  each 
society  there  was  a  board  of  pastors,  called  indifferently  elders, 
presbyters  —  a  name  taken  from  the  synagogue  —  or  bishops, 
overseers,  a  name  given  by  the  Greeks  to  persons  charged  with 
a  guiding  oversight  in  civil  administration.  In  the  election  of 
them,  the  body  of  disciples  had  a  controlling  voice,  although,  as 
long  as  the  Apostles  lived,  their  suggestions  or  appointments 
would  naturally  be  accepted.    These  officers  did  not  give  up,  at 


PRIMITIVE   CHURCH   ORGANIZATION  13 

first,  their  secular  occupations;  they  were  not  even,  at  the  out- 
set, intrusted  as  a  pecuhar  function  with  the  business  of  teach- 
ing, which  was  free  to  all  and  specially  devolved  on  a  class  of 
persons  who  seemed  designated  by  their  gifts  for  this  work. 
The  elders,  with  the  deacons  whose  business  it  was  to  look  after 
the  poor  and  to  perform  kindred  duties,  were  the  officers,  to 
whom  each  little  community  committed  the  lead  in  the  manage- 
ment of  its  affairs.  The  change  that  took  place,  either  during 
or  soon  after  the  age  of  the  Apostles,  by  which  precedence  was 
given  in  each  board  of  pastors  to  one  of  their  number  to  whom 
the  title  of  bishop  was  exclusively  appropriated,  did  not  of  itself 
involve  any  fundamental  alteration  in  the  spirit  or  polity  of  the 
churches.^  But  as  we  approach  the  close  of  the  second  century 
we  find  marked  changes,  some  of  them  of  a  portentous  char- 
acter, such  as  indicate  that  the  process  of  externalizing  the  Chris- 
tian religion  and  the  idea  of  the  Church  has  fairly  set  in.  The 
enlargement  of  the  jurisdiction  of  bishops  by  extending  it  over 
dependent  churches  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  towns,  and  the 
multiplying  of  church  offices,  are  changes  of  less  moment.  But 
the  officers  of  the  Church  are  more  and  more  assuming  the  posi- 
tion of  a  distinct  order,  which  is  placed  above  the  laity  and  is 
the  appointed  medium  of  conveying  to  them  grace.  The  con- 
ception of  a  priesthood,  after  the  Old  Testament  system,  is  at- 
taching itself  to  the  Christian  ministry.  Along  with  this  gradual 
change  there  is  an  imperceptible  yet  growing  departure  from 
the  fundamental  doctrine  of  salvation,  as  it  had  been  set  forth 
by  Paul,  and  an  adoption  of  a  more  legal  view,  in  which  faith  is 
identified  with  doctrinal  belief,  and  hence  is  coupled  with  works, 
instead  of  being  their  fruitful  source.  This  doctrinal  change  and 
this  attributing  of  a  priestly  function  and  prerogative  to  the 

*  The  polity  of  the  Church  in  the  Apostolic  age  is  admirably  described  by 
Rothe,  Die  Anfdnge  d.  Christl.  Kirche  u.  ihrer  Verfassung  (1837),  although  Rothe's 
particular  hypothesis  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Episcopate  has  found  little, 
if  any  favor.  The  Roman  Catholic  and  a  prevalent  Anglican  view,  that  the  Episco- 
pate, as  a  distinct  office,  was  ordained  by  the  Apostles  for  the  whole  Church,  is 
maintained  by  Walter,  Kirchenrecht  (13th  ed.,  1681).  The  counterpart,  on  the 
Protestant  side,  of  Walter's  work  is  that  of  Richter,  Kirchenrecht  (7th  ed.,  1872). 
There  is  an  able  historical  Dissertation  on  the  "Christian  Ministry"  by  Prof. 
Lightfoot,  St.  Patd's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  (2d  ed.,  1869).  The  more  usual 
view  of  Protestants  is  advocated  by  Neander  and  Gieseler  in  their  Church  histo- 
ries. See,  also,  Jacob,  The  Eccl.  Polity  of  the  Neiv  Testament  (1872) ;  Hatch,  The 
Hibbert  Lectures  (1888) ;  Lect.  X.  Influence  of  (Greek)  Mysteries  on  the  Christian 
Church.     The  controversial  literature  on  the  subject  is  very  copius. 


14  THE  REFORMATION 

clergy,  were  not  in  any  considerable  degree  the  result  of  efforts 
on  the  part  of  Jewish  Christians  and  of  judaizing  parties,  which 
had  been  early  overcome  and  cast  as  heretical  sects  beyond  the 
pale  of  the  Church.  They  were  rather  the  product  of  tenden- 
cies in  human  nature,  which  are  Uable  to  manifest  themselves 
at  any  time,  and  which  serve  to  account  in  great  part  for  the 
tenacious  adherence  of  the  Jewish  sectaries  to  their  ritual.  But 
these  tendencies  were  materially  aided  by  the  pecuUar  circum- 
stances in  which  the  early  Church  was  placed,  of  which  the  abuse 
of  the  Pauline  doctrine  by  Gnostic  and  by  Antinomian  specula- 
tions was  doubtless  one.  There  were  causes  which  gave  rise  at 
once  to  the  hierarchical  idea  or  doctrine  and  to  the  hierarchical 
poUty.  The  persecutions  to  which  the  Church  was  subject  at  the 
hands  of  the  Roman  government,  and  still  more  the  great  conflict 
with  a  swarm  of  heretical  teachers  who  sought  to  amalgamate 
Christianity  with  various  forms  of  Greek  and  Oriental  philoso- 
phy, suggested  the  need  of  a  more  compact  organization.  The 
polity  of  the  Church  naturally  took  a  form  corresponding  to 
political  models  then  existing.  Confederated  government  was 
something  familiar  to  the  Greek  mind.  The  Church  in  the  capi- 
tal of  a  province,  with  its  bishop,  was  easily  accorded  a  preced- 
ence over  the  other  churches  and  bishops  in  the  same  district, 
and  thus  the  metropolitan  system  grew  up.  A  higher  grade  of 
eminence  was  accorded  to  the  bishops  and  churches  of  the  prin- 
cipal cities,  such  as  Rome,  Alexandria,  and  Ephesus;  and  thus 
we  have  the  germs  of  a  more  extended  hierarchical  sway. 

Even  as  early  as  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century,  the 
Church  has  passed  into  the  condition  of  a  visible  organized  com- 
monwealth. We  find  Irenseus  uttering  the  famous  dictum  that 
where  the  Church  is  —  meaning  the  visible  body  with  its  clergy 
and  sacraments  —  there  is  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  where  the 
Spirit  of  God  is,  there  is  the  Church.^  To  be  cut  off  from  the 
Church  is  to  be  separated  from  Christ.  The  Church  is  the  door 
of  access  to  Him.  We  can  also  readily  account  for  the  impor- 
tance that  began  to  be  attached  to  tradition;  for  the  defenders 
of  Christianity  against  Gnostical  corruptions  naturally  fell  back 
on  the  historical  evidence  afforded  by  the  presence  and  testi- 
mony of  the  leading  churches  which  the  Apostles  themselves  had 
planted.     Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  direct  the  inquirer  to  go  to 

*  Adv.  Hceres.,  iii.  iii.  §  1.     Irenseus  was  Bishop  of  Lyons  from  177  to  202. 


GROWTH    OF   A    HIERARCHY  15 

Corinth,  Ephesus,  Rome,  to  the  places  where  the  Apostles  had 
taught,  and  ascertain  whether  the  novel  speculations  of  the  time 
could  justly  claim  the  sanction  of  the  first  disciples  of  Christ, 
or  had  been  transmitted  from  them.^  It  is  the  preeminence  of 
Rome,  as  the  custodian  of  traditions,  that  Irenseus  means  to 
assert  in  a  noted  passage  in  which  he  exalts  that  Church.^  But 
this  sort  of  preeminence  might  contribute  to  prepare  the  way  for 
another  and  a  far  different  conception,  which  would  connect 
itself  with  it.  The  unity  of  the  Church,  this  great  visible  society 
of  Christians,  was  realized  in  the  unity  of  the  sacerdotal  body. 
It  was  natural  to  seek  and  to  find  a  head  for  this  body.  And 
where  should  it  be  sought  except  at  Rome,  the  capital  of  the 
world,  the  seat  of  the  principal  Church,  where,  as  it  was  gener- 
ally and  perhaps  truly  believed,  Peter  as  well  as  Paul  had  per- 
ished as  a  martyr  ?  After  Peter  came  to  be  considered  the  chief 
of  the  Apostles,  and  when,  near  the  close  of  the  second  century, 
the  idea  was  suggested  and  became  current  that  Peter  had  been 
bishop  of  the  Roman  Church,  a  strong  foundation  was  laid  in 
the  minds  of  men  for  the  recognition  of  the  primacy  of  that 
Chiu-ch  and  of  its  chief  pastor.^  The  habit  of  thus  regarding 
the  see  of  Rome,  so  far  gains  ground  that  in  the  middle  of  the 
third  century  we  find  a  Cyprian  whose  zeal  for  episcopal  inde- 
pendence would  not  tolerate  the  subjection  of  one  bishop  to 
another,  still  speaking  of  that  see  as  the  source  of  sacerdotal 
unity.*  The  influences  that  gradually  built  up  the  primacy  of 
the  Roman  bishop,  and  had  a  special  force  of  operation  in  the 
Western  Church,  were  multiform.  Rome  had  a  preeminence 
and  a  grandeur  in  the  estimation  of  men,  such  as  no  modern 
cities,  however  splendid,  have  ever  rivaled.  To  that  capital 
the  nations  had  been  accustomed  to  look  with  awe.  Some- 
thing of  this  reverence  was  easily  transferred  to  the  Church 
which  had  its  seat  in  the  Eternal  City.  The  custom  of  regard- 
ing the  Roman  Empire  as  a  divinely  constituted  theater  for  the 
Christian  religion,  which  God  had  molded  for  this  end  by  a  long 
providential   history,  led  men  to  consider  the  capital  of   the 

*  Irenseus,   Adv.  Hcer.,   iii.  iii.     Tertullian,   De   Proescript.   Haeret.,    c.    xxxvi. 
Tertullian,  a  Presbyter  at  Carthage,  died  between  220  and  240. 

^  Lib.   III.  iii.  2 

*  The  first  mention  of  Peter  as  Bishop  of  Rome  is  in  the  Clementine  Homilies, 
which  were  composed  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century. 

*  Ep.  Iv.  ad  Cornel. 


16  THE  REFORMATION 

Empire  the  predestined  metropolis  of  Christianity.  In  times  of 
persecution,  the  first  intelUgence  of  the  gathering  storm  was 
often  communicated  from  the  Roman  Church,  whose  bishops 
were  Ukely  to  be  the  earUest  victims.  The  Roman  Church  was 
revered  as  the  only  apostolic  see  in  the  West.  Many  of  the 
churches  of  the  West  were  planted  by  its  agency ;  many  received 
from  it  pecuniary  aid.  There  were  fewer  cities  than  in  the  East, 
and  hence  fewer  competitors  to  dispute  the  pretensions  of  the 
Roman  bishop,  and  less  room  for  the  development  of  the  met- 
ropolitan system,  which  in  the  East  operated  to  a  certain  extent 
as  a  check  upon  the  ambition  of  any  single  prelate.  From  the 
beginning,  the  Latin  Church  partook  of  the  practical  spirit  of 
the  race  among  whom  it  was  planted ;  it  kept  on  its  path  more 
steadily,  while  the  East,  swayed  by  the  speculative  spirit  of  the 
Greek,  was  convulsed  by  the  great  controversies  in  theology, 
which  mark  especially  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  Through 
all  the  period  of  the  Arian  and  Nestorian  conflicts,  the  Roman 
bishop  stood  sufficiently  apart  from  the  contending  parties  to 
acquire  great  importance  in  their  eyes  and  to  make  his  support 
coveted  by  each  of  them.  He  was  the  powerful  neutral  whom 
it  was  for  the  interest  of  all  factions  to  concihate.  The  desire 
to  gain  the  strength  which  the  adhesion  of  so  influential  a  prel- 
ate must  give,  would  induce  partisans  to  resort  to  him  as  an 
umpire,  and  to  exalt  his  prerogative  in  flattering  language,  such 
as  under  different  circumstances  they  would  never  have  em- 
ployed. At  critical  moments  the  Roman  bishop  actually  inter- 
posed with  doctrinal  formulas  which  met  with  general  acceptance ; 
the  most  memorable  instance  being  that  of  the  (Ecumenical 
Council  of  Chalcedon  (451),  when  the  statement  of  the  creed 
respecting  the  person  of  Christ  was  substantially  drawn  from 
the  letter  of  Leo  I.  But  how  far  the  Eastern  prelates  were  from 
acknowledging  the  pretensions  of  the  Roman  bishop  was  indi- 
cated at  this  very  council,  where  a  titular  and  honorary  preced- 
ence was  granted  him,  at  the  same  time  that  equality  in  other 
respects  was  claimed  for  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  on  account 
of  his  being  bishop  of  "New  Rome."  Leo  was  cut  to  the  quick 
by  this  proceeding  of  the  council,  which  placed  his  authority  on 
so  precarious  a  foundation  by  making  it  dependent  solely  on 
the  political  importance  of  the  city  where  it  was  exerted.  He 
repels  the  declaration  of  the  council  with  great  warmth,  and 


PRECEDENCE   OF   THE   ROMAN   CHURCH  17 

asserts  that  the  authority  of  spiritual  Rome  is  founded  on  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  see  of  Peter.  Yet  Leo  does  not  renounce  the 
advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  commanding  poUtical  posi- 
tion of  Rome,  but  skillfully  interweaves  this  with  the  more  vital 
consideration  just  named.  He  claims  that  the  Roman  Empire 
was  built  up  with  reference  to  Christianity,  and  that  Rome,  for 
this  reason,  was  chosen  for  the  bishopric  of  the  chief  of  the  Apos- 
tles. This  idea  as  to  the  design  of  the  Roman  Empire  passed 
down  to  later  times.  It  is  impUed  in  the  lines  of  Dante,  where, 
speaking  of  Rome  and  the  Empire,  he  says :  — 

"Fur  stabiliti  per  lo  loco  santo 
U'  siede  il  successor  del  maggior  Piero."' 

If  we  watch  the  course  of  history  for  several  centuries  after 
the  second,  we  observe  that  the  attempts  of  the  Roman  bishops 
to  exercise  judicial  or  legislative  functions  in  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  Church,  now  succeed  and  again  are  repulsed;  but  on  the 
whole,  under  all  these  fluctuations,  their  power  is  increasing. 

The  accession  of  Constantine  (311)  found  the  Church  so 
firmly  organized  under  its  hierarchy  that  it  could  not  be  abso- 
lutely merged  in  the  state,  as  might  have  been  the  result  had 
its  constitution  been  cUfferent.  But  under  him  and  his  succes- 
sors, the  supremacy  of  the  state  and  a  large  measure  of  control 
over  ecclesiastical  affairs  were  maintained  by  the  emperors. 
General  councils,  for  example,  were  convoked  by  them  and  pre- 
sided over  by  their  representatives,  and  conciliar  decrees  pub- 
lished as  laws  of  the  Empire.  The  Roman  bishops  felt  it  to  be 
an  honor  to  be  judged  only  by  the  Emperor.^  In  the  closing 
period  of  imperial  history,  the  Emperors  favored  the  ecclesias- 
tical primacy  of  the  Roman  See,  as  a  bond  of  unity  in  the  Empire. 
Political  disorders  tended  to  elevate  the  position  of  the  Roman 
bishop,  especially  when  he  was  a  person  of  remarkable  talents 
and  energy.  In  such  a  case  the  office  took  on  new  prerogatives. 
Leo  the  Great  (440-461),  the  first,  perhaps,  who  is  entitled  to 
be  styled  Pope,  with  the  more  modern  associations  of  the  title, 
proved  himself  a  pillar  of  strength  in  the  midst  of  tumult  and 
anarchy.     His  conspicuous  services,  as  in  shielding  Rome  from 

*  "Were  established  as  the  holy  place,  wherein 
Sits  the  successor  of  the  greatest  Peter." 

Inferno,  ii.  23-24. 
2  Gieseler,  II.  i.  3,  §  92. 


18  THE  REFORMATION 

the  barbarians  and  protecting  its  inhabitants,  facilitated  the 
exercise  of  a  spiritual  jurisdiction  that  stretched  not  only  over 
Italy,  but  as  far  as  Gaul  and  Africa.  To  him  was  given  by  Val- 
entinian  III.  (445)  an  imperial  declaration  which  made  him 
supreme  over  the  Western  Church. 

The  fall  of  the  Western  Empire  (476),  in  one  important  par- 
ticular, was  of  signal  advantage  to  the  popes :  it  liberated  them 
from  subjection  to  the  civil  power.  The  fate  of  the  Eastern 
Church  and  of  the  see  of  Constantinople  might  have  been  the 
fate  of  the  Western  Church  and  of  Rome,  had  its  political  situa- 
tion been  equally  unpropitious.  The  slavish  condition  to  which 
the  Roman  bishops  were  reduced  in  the  brief  period  of  the  full 
Greek  rule  in  Italy,  after  the  conquest  of  Justinian  (539-568), 
proves  how  closely  the  vigor  and  growth  of  the  papal  institution 
were  dependent  on  favoring  political  circumstances.  From  this 
ignoble  servitude  it  was  liberated  by  the  Lombard  invasion, 
which  broke  down  the  Greek  power  in  the  peninsula. 

But  the  direct  consequences  of  the  fall  of  the  Roman  domin- 
ion in  the  West  had  been  disastrous  to  the  Church  and  to  the 
Papacy.^  Christian  Britain  had  been  conquered  by  the  heathen 
Saxons  from  the  continent.  Arianism,  a  doctrine  hostile  to  the 
orthodox  creed  in  a  cardinal  feature,  had  spread  far  and  wide 
among  the  Germanic  tribes.  The  Greek  Church,  which  became 
more  and  more  distinct  from  the  Latin,  in  language,  creed,  and 
ritual,  attached  itself  with  increasing  loyalty  to  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople.  As  Arianism  was,  step  by  step,  displaced  by 
orthodoxy  through  the  conquests  of  the  Franks,  the  authority 
of  the  Papacy  was  not  proportionately  advanced.  Even  the 
power  of  metropolitans  in  the  different  countries  sank,  and  the 
government  of  the  Church  rested  in  the  hands  of  the  kings 
and  of  the  aristocracy  of  nobles  and  bishops.  The  bishops 
under  the  Merovingian  kings  amassed  wealth,  but  led  unholy 
lives,  with  little  concern  for  the  interests  of  religion.  The  dis- 
order in  the  Frank  Church  reached  its  height  under  Charles 
Martel.  At  this  time  the  heretical  Lombards  had  founded 
their  kingdom  in  the  heart  of  Italy;  and  the  Arabs,  having 
carried  their  dominion  over  Africa  and  Spain,  were  advancing 
apparently  to  the  conquest  of  Europe. 

The  fortunate  alliance  of  the  Papacy  with  the  Franks  was 

*  Giesebrecht,  Die  Deutsche  Kaiserzeit,  i.  92. 


THE   PAPACY    AND   THE    FRANKS  19 

the  event  on  which  its  whole  mediseval  history  turned.  They 
counted  at  their  conversion,  in  the  fifth  century,  only  about 
five  thousand  warriors.  They  gained  the  ascendency  over  the 
Burgundians  and  Goths,  and  thus  secured  the  victory  of  the 
Catholic  faith  over  the  Arian  type  of  Christianity.  This  alone 
was  an  event  of  signal  moment,  in  its  ultimate  bearing  on  the 
papal  dominion.  Then,  under  Charles  Martel,  at  Poitiers  (732), 
they  defeated  the  Moslems,  who,  in  their  victorious  progress, 
were  encircling  Christendom  and  threatening  not  only  to  crush 
the  Papacy  but  even  to  extirpate  Christianity  itself.  Under 
the  shield  of  the  Franks,  Boniface  went  forth  to  accompUsh  the 
conversion  of  the  Germans;  himself  an  Anglo-Saxon,  of  the 
nation  which  had  been  won  from  heathenism  by  missionaries 
sent  directly  from  that  pontiff  whose  reign  separates  the  ancient 
or  classical  from  the  mediseval  era  of  the  Church,  Gregory  the 
Great.  The  usurpation  of  Pepin,  the  founder  of  the  Carlovin- 
gian  Hne,  was  hallowed  in  the  eyes  of  his  subjects  by  the  sanction 
obtained  from  Pope  Zacharias  (751).  The  political  renovation 
of  the  Prankish  monarchy  was  attended  by  an  extension 
of  the  influence  of  the  papal  see.  The  Prankish  Church  was 
brought  into  closer  connection  with  Rome.  The  primacy  of 
Peter  was  universally  recognized ;  it  even  acquired,  through  the 
labors  of  Boniface,  a  far  higher  significance  than  it  had  ever 
before  possessed.^  After  the  Lombards  had  wrested  from  the 
Greeks  their  provinces  in  Italy,  and  were  threatening  Rome,  at 
a  time,  too,  when,  by  the  controversy  about  the  worship  of 
images,  the  Western  Church  was  separated  from  the  East  and 
the  Roman  bishop  was  left  to  protect  himself,  he  turned  to  the 
Franks  for  assistance  against  his  heretical  and  aggressive  neigh- 
bors. The  deliverance  achieved  first  by  Pepin  (754-55),  and 
then  by  Charlemagne,  resulted  in  the  coronation  of  the  latter, 
on  Christmas  Day,  800,  in  the  Basilica  of  St.  Peter,  by  the  hands 
of  the  Pope.  Thus  Charles  became  in  form  what  he  had  made 
himself  in  fact,  the  Emperor  of  the  West.  The  idea  of  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  never  lost  from  the  minds 
of  men.  In  the  coronation  of  Charles,  the  Pope  virtually  pro- 
ceeded in  the  character  of  a  representative  of  the  Roman  people, 
and  his  act  signified  the  revival  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Charle- 
magne, while  he  recognized  the   Pope  as   the  spiritual  head 

>  Giesebrecht,  i.  97. 


20  THE  REFORMATION 

of  the  Church,  demeaned  himself  as  a  master  in  reference 
to  him,  as  in  relation  to  his  own  bishops.  But  while  the  founda- 
tion was  laid  for  the  papal  kingdom  in  Italy  by  the  grants  of 
Pepin  and  Charlemagne,  a  plausible  groimd  was  also  furnished 
for  the  subsequent  claim  that  the  Pope,  by  his  own  authority, 
had  transferred  the  Empire  from  the  East  to  the  West,  and 
selected  the  individual  to  fill  the  throne/  In  later  times  the 
coronation  of  Charles  lent  color  to  the  pretended  right  of  the 
pontiffs  to  exert  a  governing  influence  in  civil  not  less  than  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs. 

As  the  divisions  and  conflicts  of  Charlemagne's  empire  after 
his  death  tended  to  exalt  the  bishops  who  were  called  in  to  act 
as  umpires  among  rival  aspirants  or  courted  for  the  rehgious 
sanction  which  they  could  give  to  successful  ambition,  so  did 
this  era  of  disorder  tend  to  magnify  the  power  of  the  recognized 
head  of  the  whole  episcopate.  In  this  period  appeared  the 
False  or  Pseudo-Isidorian  Decretals,  which  formuUzed,  to  be 
sure,  tendencies  already  rife,  but  still  imparted  to  those  tenden- 
cies an  authoritative  basis  and  an  augmented  strength.  The 
False  Decretals  brought  forward  principles  of  ecclesiastical 
law  which  made  the  Church  independent  of  the  State  and 
elevated  the  Roman  See  to  a  position  unknown  to  preceding 
ages.  The  immunity  and  high  prerogatives  of  bishops,  the 
exaltation  of  primates,  as  the  direct  instruments  of  the  popes, 
above  metropoUtans  who  were  closely  dependent  on  the  secular 
rulers,  and  the  ascription  of  the  highest  legislative  and  judicial 
functions  to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  were  among  the  leading  features 
of  this  spurious  collection,  which  found  its  way  into  the  codes 
of  canon  law  and  radically  modified  the  ancient  ecclesiastical 
system.^  There  was  only  needed  a  pope  of  sufficient  talents 
and  energy  to  give  practical  effect  to  these  new  principles;  and 
such  a  person  appeared  in  Nicholas  I.  (858-867).  Availing 
himself  of  a  favorable  juncture,  he  exercised  the  discipHne  of 
the  Church  upon  Lothair  II.,  the  King  of  Lorraine,  whom  he 
forced  to  submit  to  the  papal  judgment  in  a  matrimonial  cause, 
while  he  deposed  the  archbishops  who  had  endeavored  to  baffle 

*  For  the  history  of  the  papal  kingdom  in  Italy,  see  the  work  of  Sugenheim, 
Geschichte  der  Entstehiing  u.  Ausbildung  des  Kirchenstaates  (Leipsic,  1854);  also, 
a  review  of  this  work  in  the  Nen>  Englander,  vol.  xxvi.  (Jan.  1867). 

^  On  the  date  of  the  Psoudo-Isid.  Decretals,  see  E.  Seckel,  in  Hauck's  Realency- 
klopddie,  xvi.  265  seq.    They  first  appeared  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century. 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  EMPIRE  21 

his  purpose.  At  the  same  time,  Nicholas  humbled  Hincmar,  the 
powerful  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  who  had  disregarded  the  appeal 
which  one  of  his  bishops,  Rothad  of  Soissons,  had  made  to 
Rome.  Such  exertions  of  power,  for  which  the  False  Decretals 
furnished  a  warrant,  seem  to  anticipate  the  Hildebrandian  age. 

Anxious  to  deliver  themselves  from  the  control  which  Charle- 
magne had  estabhshed  over  them,  the  popes  even  fomented  the 
discord  among  the  Frankish  princes;  but  the  anarchical  con- 
dition into  which  the  Empire  ultimately  fell,  left  the  Papacy, 
for  a  century  and  a  half,  the  prey  of  Italian  factions,  by  the 
agency  of  which  the  papal  office  was  reduced  to  a  lower  point 
of  moral  degradation  than  it  ever  reached  before  or  since. ^ 
This  era  —  during  a  considerable  portion  of  which  harlots  dis- 
posed of  the  papal  office,  and  their  paramours  wore  the  tiara  — 
was  interrupted  by  the  intervention  of  the  German  sovereigns 
Otho  I.  and  Otho  III. ;  with  the  first  of  whom  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  name  is  used  in  subsequent 
ages,  the  secular  counterpart  of  the  Papacy,  takes  its  origin.^ 
The  pontiffs  preferred  the  sway  of  the  Emperors  to  that  of  the 
lawless  ItaUan  barons.^  This  dark  period  was  terminated  by 
Henry  III.,  who  appeared  in  Italy  at  the  head  of  an  army,  and, 
in  1046,  at  the  Synod  of  Sutri,  which  he  had  convoked,  de- 
throned three  rival  popes,  and  raised  to  the  vacant  office  one  of 
his  own  bishops. 

The  imperial  office  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  German 
kings,  and  they,  Hke  their  Carlo\dngian  predecessors,  rescued 
the  Papacy  from  destruction.  We  have  reached  the  period 
when  Hildebrand  (1073-1085)  appeared  with  his  vast  reform- 
ing plan.  While  he  aimed  at  a  thorough  reformation  of  morals 
and  a  restoration  of  ecclesiastical  order  and  discipHne,  he  coupled 
with  this  laudable  project  the  fixed  design  to  subordinate  the 
State  to  the  Church,  and  to  subject  the  Church  to  the  absolute 
authority  of  the  Pope.*  The  prosecution  of  this  enterprise,  in 
which  good  and  evil  were  almost  inseparably  blended,  by  Hilde- 

'  The  degradation  of  the  Papacy  in  this  period  is  depicted  in  the  darkest 
colors  by  the  Roman  Catholic  annalist,  Baronius,  Annales,  x.  650  seq.  He  even 
infers  a  special  divine  preservation  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Holy  See. 

^  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire,  p.  80.  This  admirable  work  deserves  to  be 
read  by  every  student  of  history. 

^  Von  Raumer,  Ge.schichte  der  Hohenstaufen,  i.  20. 

*  Gregory's  system  is  well  described  by  Voigt,  Hildebrand  als  Papst  Grego- 
rius  der  Siebente,  u.  sein  Zeitalter  (Weimar,  1846),  p.  171  seq. 


22  THE  REFORMATION 

brand  himself,  and  by  a  series  of  able  and  aspiring  pontiffs  who 
trod  in  his  footsteps,  occasioned  the  conflict  between  the  Papacy 
and  the  Empire. 

This  conflict,  with  which  mediaeval  history  for  several  cen- 
turies resounds,  was  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  feudal 
system.  The  dependence  of  ecclesiastical  princes  upon  their 
sovereign,  and  hence  his  right  to  invest  them  with  the  badges 
of  their  oflfice,  must  be  maintained;  otherwise  the  kingdom 
would  be  divided  against  itself.  On  the  contrary,  such  a  re- 
lation on  the  part  of  bishops,  independently  of  simony  and  kin- 
dred corruptions  which  were  connected  with  the  control  of 
secular  rulers  over  the  appointment  of  ecclesiastics,  was  natu- 
rally deemed  fatal  to  the  unity  of  the  sacerdotal  body.  To 
fix  the  bounds  of  authority  between  the  two  powers,  the  Papacy 
and  the  Empire,  to  whom  the  government  of  the  world  was 
supposed  to  be  committed  by  the  ordinance  of  heaven,  was 
impracticable  without  a  contest.  That  the  Emperor  was  com- 
missioned to  preside  over  the  temporal  affairs  of  men,  while 
the  Pope  was  to  guide  and  govern  them  in  things  spiritual,  was 
too  vague  a  criterion  for  defining  the  limits  of  jurisdiction. 
The  coordination,  the  equilibrium  of  the  two  powers,  was  a 
relation  with  which,  on  the  supposition  that  it  were  practicable, 
neither  party  would  be  content.  It  was  a  struggle  on  both 
sides  for  universal  monarchy.  Consequently  our  sympathies 
can  be  given  without  reserve  to  neither  party,  or  rather  they 
must  be  given  to  each  so  far  as  each  labored  to  curb  the  encroach- 
ments and  prevent  the  undue  predominance  of  the  other.  Nei- 
ther aimed  at  the  destruction,  but  each  at  the  subjugation,  of 
the  other.  It  was  a  battle  where  society  would  have  equally 
suffered  from  the  complete  and  permanent  triumph  of  either 
contestant. 

The  Papacy  had  great  advantages  for  prosecuting  the  warfare 
against  the  Empire,  even  apart  from  the  fence  of  the  reUgious 
sentiments  which  the  head  of  the  Church  could  more  easily 
invoke  in  his  favor.  There  was  an  incongruity  between  the 
station  attributed  to  the  Emperor  and  the  fact  that  his  actual 
dominion  was  far  from  being  coextensive  with  Christendom. 
He  could  assert  nothing  more  than  a  shadowy,  theoretical 
supremacy  over  the  other  kingdoms  of  Western  Europe.  The 
Pope,  on  the  contrary,  was  everywhere  the  acknowledged  head 


THE   PAPACY   AND   THE   EMPIRE  23 

of  Latin  Christianity.  If  a  jealousy  for  their  own  rights  might 
tempt  other  kings  to  make  common  cause  with  the  Emperor 
against  papal  aggressions,  this  feeUng  would  be  neutraUzed  by 
the  danger  to  other  sovereigns  that  would  follow  from  the 
triumph  and  undisputed  exaltation  of  the  Empire,  Few  kings 
were  possessed  of  the  magnanimity  of  St.  Louis  (Louis  IX.)  of 
France,  who  exerted  all  the  powers  of  peaceful  remonstrance 
to  protect  Frederic  II.  from  the  implacable  vindictiveness  of 
Gregory  IX.  Moreover,  the  relation  of  the  German  Emperors 
to  the  hierarchy  of  their  kingdom  was  quite  different  from  that 
held  by  Charlemagne,  who  acted  the  part  of  an  ecclesiastical  as 
well  as  a  civil  ruler.  An  indispensable  and  effective  support  the 
popes  found  in  the  German  princes  themselves,  the  great  vassals 
of  the  Empire,  and  in  their  disposition  to  put  checks  upon  the 
power  of  their  sovereigns.  The  same  cause  which  impeded  the 
emperors  in  acting  upon  Italy  aided  the  popes  in  acting  upon 
Germany.  The  strength  of  the  popes  lay  in  the  intestine  divi- 
sions which  they  could  create  there.  The  attempt  of  Gregory 
VII.  to  dethrone  Henry  IV.  would  have  been  utterly  hopeless 
but  for  the  disaffection  which  the  arbitrary  conduct  of  Henry 
had  provoked  among  his  own  subjects.  On  the  contrary,  the 
municipal  spirit  of  liberty  in  the  Itahan  cities,  and  their  deter- 
mined struggle  for  independence,  provided  the  popes  with  potent 
allies  against  the  imperial  authority.  The  pontiffs  were  able 
to  present  themselves  in  the  attractive  light  of  champions  of 
popular  freedom  in  its  battle  with  despotism.  The  crusades 
gave  the  popes  the  opportunity  to  come  forward  as  the  leaders 
of  Christendom,  and  turn  to  their  own  account  the  religious 
enthusiasm  which  spread  as  a  fire  over  Europe.  The  immediate 
influence  of  this  great  movement  was  seen  in  the  augmented 
powTr  of  the  pontiffs,  and  the  diminished  strength  of  the  im- 
perial cause.* 

The  Papacy  was  victorious  in  the  protracted  struggle  with 
the  Empire.  The  humiliation  of  Henry  IV.,  whom  Hildebrand 
kept  waiting  for  three  winter  days,  in  the  garb  of  a  penitent, 
in  the  yard  of  the  castle  at  Canossa,  whatever  might  be  the  dis- 
grace which  it  inflicted  upon  the  imperial  cause,  was  but  the 
politic  act  of  a  passionate  young  ruler,  who  saw  no  other  way  of 
regaining  the  allegiance  of  his  subjects  (1077).     When  the  hft- 

'  See   Gieseler,    iii.    iii.    1,    §  48. 


24  THE  REFORMATION 

ing  of  the  excommunication  was  found  not  to  include  the  full 
restoration  of  his  rights  as  a  sovereign,  he  took  up  arms  with 
an  energy  and  success  that  showed  how  little  his  spirit  was 
broken  by  the  indignities  to  which  he  had  submitted.  The 
Worms  Concordat  which  Calixtus  II.  concluded  with  Henry  V. 
in  1122,  and  which  provided  both  for  a  secular  and  a  spiritual 
investiture,  was  a  marked,  though  not  a  fully  decisive,  triumph 
of  the  Papacy,  It  was  a  long  step  towards  complete  emanci- 
pation from  imperial  sway.*  But  the  acknowledgment  which 
Frederic  Barbarossa  made  of  his  sin  and  error  to  Alexander  III, 
at  Venice,  in  1177,  after  a  contest  for  imperial  prerogatives 
which  that  monarch  had  kept  up  for  nearly  a  generation,  was 
an  impressive  indication  of  the  side  on  which  the  victory  was 
to  rest.  The  triumph  of  the  Papacy  appeared  complete  when 
Gregory  X.  (1271-1276)  directed  the  electoral  princes  to  choose 
an  emperor  within  a  given  interval,  and  threatened,  in  case 
they  refused  to  comply  with  the  mandate,  to  appoint,  in  con- 
junction with  his  cardinals,  an  emperor  for  them;  and  when 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  whom  they  proceeded  to  choose,  ac- 
knowledged in  the  most  unreserved  and  submissive  manner  the 
Pope's  supremacy. 

It  was  during  the  progress  of  the  struggle  with  the  Empire, 
that  the  papal  power  may  be  said  to  have  culminated.  In  the 
eighteen  years  (1198-1216)  in  which  Innocent  III.  reigned,  the 
papal  institution  shone  forth  in  full  splendor.^  The  enforce- 
ment of  cehbacy  had  placed  the  entire  body  of  the  clergy  in  a 
closer  relation  to  the  sovereign  pontiff.  The  Vicar  of  Peter  had 
assumed  the  rank  of  Vicar  of  God  and  of  Christ.  The  idea  of  a 
theocracy  on  earth,  in  which  the  Pope  should  rule  in  this  char- 
acter, fully  possessed  the  mind  of  Innocent,  who  united  to  the 
courage,  pertinacity,  and  lofty  conceptions  of  Gregory  VII.,  a 
broader  range  of  statesmanlike  capacity.  In  his  view  the  two 
swords  of  temporal  and  ecclesiastical  power  had  both  been 
given  to  Peter  and  to  his  successors,  so  that  the  earthly  sover- 
eign derived  his  prerogative  from  the  head  of  the  Church.  The 
king  was  to  the  Pope  as  the  moon  to  the  sun  —  a  lower  luminary 
shining  with  borrowed  light.  Acting  on  this  theory,  he  assumed 
the  post  of  arbiter  in  the  contentions  of  nations,  and  claimed 

*  Giesebrecht,  i.  917. 

2  Hurler,  Geschichte  Papst  Innocent  d.  Dritten,  3  vols.   (1841). 


HEIGHT   OF   THE   PAPAL   POWER  25 

the  right  to  dethrone  kings  at  his  pleasure.  Thus  he  interposed 
to  decide  the  disputed  imperial  election  in  Germany ;  and  when 
Otho  IV.,  the  emperor  whom  he  had  placed  in  power,  proved 
false  to  his  pledges  respecting  the  papal  see,  he  excommunicated 
and  deposed  him,  and  brought  forward  Frederic  II.  in  his  stead. 
In  his  conflict  with  John,  King  of  England,  Innocent  laid  his 
kingdom  under  an  interdict,  excommunicated  him,  and  finally 
gave  his  dominions  to  the  sovereign  of  France;  and  John,  after 
the  most  abject  humiliation,  received  them  back  in  fee  from  the 
Pope.  In  the  Church  he  assumed  the  character  of  universal 
bishop,  under  the  theory  that  all  episcopal  power  was  originally 
deposited  in  Peter  and  his  successors,  and  communicated  through 
this  source  to  bishops,  who  were  thus  only  the  vicars  of  the  Pope, 
and  might  be  deposed  at  will.  To  him  belonged  all  legislative 
authority,  councils  having  merely  a  deUberative  power,  while 
the  right  to  convoke  them  and  to  ratify  or  annul  their  proceed- 
ings belonged  exclusively  to  him.  He  alone  was  not  bound  by 
the  laws,  and  might  dispense  with  them  in  the  case  of  others. 
Even  the  doctrine  of  papal  infalUbility  began  to  spread,  and 
seems  implied,  if  not  explicitly  avowed,  in  the  teaching  of  the 
most  eminent  theologian  of  the  age,  Thomas  Aquinas.  The 
ecclesiastical  revolution  by  which  the  powers  that  of  old  had 
been  distributed  through  the  Church  were  now  absorbed  and 
concentrated  in  the  Pope,  was  analogous  to  the  political  change 
in  which  the  feudal  system  gradually  gave  place  to  monarchy. 
The  right  to  confirm  the  appointment  of  all  bishops,  even  the 
right  to  nominate  bishops  and  to  dispose  of  all  benefices,  the 
exclusive  right  of  absolution,  canonization,  and  dispensation, 
the  right  to  tax  the  churches  —  such  were  some  of  the  enor- 
mous prerogatives,  for  the  enforcement  of  which  papal  legates, 
clothed  with  ample  powers,  WTre  sent  into  all  the  countries  of 
Europe,  to  override  the  authority  of  bishops  and  of  local  eccle- 
siastical tribunals.  The  establishment  of  the  famous  mendi- 
cant orders  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic  raised  up  a  swarm  of 
itinerant  preachers  who  were  closely  attached  to  the  Pope,  and 
ready  to  defend  papal  prerogatives  and  papal  extortions  against 
whatever  opposition  might  arise  from  the  secular  clergy.  Gain- 
ing a  foothold  in  the  universities,  they  defined  and  defended  in 
lectures  and  scholastic  systems  that  conception  of  the  papal  insti- 
tution in  which  all  these  usurpations  and  abuses  were  comprised. 


26  THE   REFORMATION 

But  at  the  same  time  that  the  Papacy  was  achieving  its 
victory  over  the  Empire,  a  power  was  at  work  in  the  bosom  of 
society,  which  was  destined  to  render  that  victory  a  barren 
one,  and  to  wrest  the  scepter  from  the  land  of  the  conqueror. 
This  power  may  be  described  as  nationaUsm,  or  the  tendency 
to  centrahzation,  which  involved  an  expansion  of  intelhgence 
and  an  end  of  the  exclusive  domination  of  religious  and  eccle- 
siastical interests.^  The  secularizing  and  centralizing  tendency, 
a  necessary  step  in  the  progress  of  civihzation,  was  a  force  ad- 
verse to  the  papal  absorption  of  authority.  The  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  towns,  which  dates  from  the  eleventh  century,  and 
the  growth  of  their  power ;  the  rise  of  commerce ;  the  crusades, 
which  in  various  ways  lent  a  powerful  impulse  to  the  new  crys- 
tallization of  European  society;  the  conception  of  monarchy 
in  its  European  form,  which  entered  the  minds  of  men  as  early 
as  the  twelfth  century  —  these  are  some  of  the  principal  signs 
of  the  advent  of  a  new  order  of  things.  Before  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  the  last  Syrian  town  in  the  hands  of  the 
Christians  was  yielded  to  the  Saracens,  and  the  pecuHar  en- 
thusiasm which  had  driven  multitudes  by  an  irresistible  force 
to  the  conquest  of  the  holy  places  had  vanished.  The  struggle 
of  the  Papacy  with  the  Empire  had  been  really  itself  a  contest 
between  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  lay  elements  of  society.  The 
triumph  of  the  Papacy  had  been  owing  to  the  peculiar  constitu- 
tion and  intrinsic  weakness  of  the  German  monarchy.  It  had 
been  effected  by  the  aid  of  the  German  princes;  but  they,  in 
their  turn,  were  found  ready  to  resist  papal  encroachments. 
From  the  time  of  the  barbarian  invasions,  Europe  had  formed, 
so  to  speak,  one  family,  united  by  the  bond  of  religion,  under 
the  tutelage  of  the  Papacy.  All  other  influences  tended  to 
division  and  isolation.  The  empire  of  Charlemagne  formed  but 
a  temporary  breakwater  in  opposition  to  these  tendencies.  The 
German  spirit  of  independence  was  unfavorable  to  political 
unity.     The  feudal  system  was  an  atomic  condition  of  political 

■  "  The  gradual  but  slow  reaction  of  the  national  feeling  (des  staatlichen 
Geistes)  against  ecclesiastical  government  in  Europe  (europaische  Kirchenrecht), 
is,  in  general,  the  most  weighty  element  in  the  history  of  the  Middle  Age;  it 
appears  in  every  period  under  different  forms  and  names,  particularly  in  the 
struggle  about  investitures  and  the  conflict  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  is  continued  in 
the  Reformation,  in  the  French  Revolution,  and  is  still  visible  in  the  most  re- 
cent Concordats  and  in  the  antagonisms  of  our  own  time." —  Gregorovius,  Ge- 
schichte  der  Stadt  Rom  im  Mittelalter,  v.  561. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   LAY    SPIRIT  27 

society.  In  this  state  of  things,  the  Church,  through  its  hier- 
archical organization  under  one  chief,  did  a  beneficent  work 
for  civilization  by  fusing  the  peoples,  as  far  as  its  influence  went, 
into  a  single  community,  and  subjecting  them  to  a  uniform 
training.  The  mediaeval  Papacy,  whatever  evils  may  have 
been  connected  with  it,  saved  Europe  from  anarchy  and  law- 
lessness. "Providence  might  have  otherwise  ordained,  but  it 
is  impossible  for  man  to  imagine  by  what  other  organizing  or 
consolidating  force,  the  commonwealth  of  the  Western  nations 
could  have  grown  up  to  a  discordant,  indeed,  and  conflicting 
league,  but  still  to  a  league,  with  that  unity  and  conformity  of 
manners,  usages,  laws,  religion,  which  have  made  their  rivalries, 
oppugnancies,  and  even  their  long,  ceaseless  wars,  on  the  whole 
to  issue  in  the  noblest,  highest,  most  intellectual  form  of  civili- 
zation known  to  man."^  But  the  time  must  come  for  the 
diversifying  of  this  unity,  for  the  developing  of  the  nations  in 
their  separate  individuality.  This  was  a  change  equally  indis- 
pensable. 

The  development  of  the  national  languages  which  follows 
the  chaotic  period  of  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  is  an  inter- 
esting sign  of  that  new  stage  in  the  advancement  of  civilization, 
upon  which  Europe  was  preparing  to  enter.  It  is  worthy  of 
notice  that  the  earliest  vernacular  hterature  in  Italy,  Germany, 
France,  and  England  involved  to  so  great  an  extent  satires  and 
invectives  against  ecclesiastics.  Many  of  the  writers  in  the 
living  tongues  were  laymen.  A  class  of  lay  readers  sprang  up, 
so  that  it  was  no  longer  the  case  that  "clerk"  was  a  synonym 
for  one  who  is  able  to  read  and  write.  "The  greater  part  of 
literature  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  says  Hallam,  "at  least  from  the 
twelfth  century,  may  be  considered  as  artillery  leveled  against 
the  clergy."  ^  In  Spain,  the  contest  with  the  Moors  infused 
into  the  earliest  literary  productions  the  mingled  sentiments  of 
loyalty  and  religion.^  But  in  Germany  the  minnesingers  abound 
in  hostile  allusions  to  the  wealth  and  tyranny  of  ecclesiastics. 
Walter  von  der  Vogelweide,  the  greatest  of  the  lyric  poets  of 
his  time,  a  warm  champion  of  the  imperial  side  against  the  popes, 
denounces  freely  the  riches  and  usurpations  of  the  Church.'* 

'  Milman,   History  of  Latin  Christianity,   ii.   43.     See   also  iii.   360. 

2  Literature  of  Europe,   i.   150. 

^  Ticknor,  History  of  Spanish  Literature,  i.  103. 

*  Kurtz,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Litcratur,  i.  48  seq.,  where  passages  are  given. 


28  THE  REFORMATION 

It  is  true  that  the  brute  epic,  of  which  Reynard  the  Fox  may 
be  considered  the  blossom,  which  figures  largely  in  the  early 
literature  of  Germany  and  the  neighboring  countries,  was  not 
didactic  or  satirical  in  its  design/  But  later  it  was  converted 
into  this  use  and  turned  into  a  vehicle  for  chastising  the  faults 
of  priests  and  monks.^  The  Provengal  bards  were  bold  and 
unsparing  in  their  treatment  of  the  hierarchy  until  they  were 
silenced  by  the  Albigensian  crusade.  In  Italy  Dante  and 
Petrarch  signalized  the  beginning  of  a  national  Hterature  by 
their  denunciation  of  the  vices  and  usurpations  of  the  Papacy; 
while  in  the  prose  of  Boccaccio  the  popular  rehgious  teachers 
are  a  mark  for  unbounded  ridicule.  English  poetry  begins 
with  contemptuous  and  indignant  censure  of  the  monks  and 
higher  clergy,  with  the  boldest  manifestations  of  the  anti- 
hierarchical  tendency.  "Teutonism,"  says  Milman,  "is  now 
holding  its  first  initiatory  struggle  with  Latin  Christianity."  ^ 
"The  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman,"  by  William  Langland, 
which  bears  the  date  of  1362,  is  from  the  pen  of  an  earnest  re- 
former who  values  reason  and  conscience  as  the  guides  of  the 
soul,  and  attributes  the  sorrows  and  calamities  of  the  world  to 
the  wealth  and  worldly  temper  of  the  clergy,  and  especially 
of  the  mendicant  orders.^  The  poem  ends  with  an  assertion  of 
the  small  value  of  popes'  pardons  and  the  superiority  of  a 
righteous  life  over  trust  in  indulgences.  "Pierce  the  Plough- 
man's crede,"  is  a  poem  from  another  hand,  and  supposed  to 
have  been  written  in  1394.  The  poet  introduces  a  plain  man 
who  is  acquainted  with  the  rudiments  of  Christian  knowledge 
and  wants  to  learn  his  creed.  He  applies  successively  to  the 
four  orders  of  mendicant  friars,  who  give  him  no  satisfaction, 
but  rail  at  each  other,  and  are  absorbed  in  riches  and  sensual 
indulgence.  Leaving  them,  he  finds  an  honest  ploughman, 
who  inveighs  against  the  monastic  orders  and  gives  him  the 
instruction  which  he  desires.^    The  author  is  an  avowed  Wick- 

*  Vilmar,  Gsch.  d.  deutsch.  Lit.,  p.  296  seq. 

^  See  Gervinus,  Gsch.  d.  deutschen  Lit.,  i.  141. 

'  History  of  Latin  Christianity,  viii.  372.  In  this  and  in  the  three  preced- 
ing chapters,  Milman  gives  an  interesting  description  of  the  early  vernacular 
literatures.  In  ch.  iv.  he  speaks  of  the  satirical  Latin  poems  that  sprang  up 
among  the  clergy  and  within  the  walls  of  convents. 

*  The  poem  is  among  the  publications  of  the  Early  English  Text  Society.  It 
is  analyzed  in  the  preface  of  Part  I.  Text  A.  See,  also,  Warton,  History  of  Eng- 
lish Poetry,  sect.  viii.  (vol.  ii.  44). 

^  The  poem  is  published  by  the  Early  English  Text  Society  (1867).  Warton, 
sect.  ix.  (ii.  87). 


THE   VERNACULAR   LITERATURE  29 

liffite.  Chaucer,  in  the  picture  of  social  life  which  he  has  drawn 
in  the  "Canterbury  Tales,"  shows  himself  in  full  accord  with 
Wickhffe  in  the  hostiUty  to  the  mendicant  friars.  Chaucer 
reserves  his  admiration  for  the  simple  and  faithful  parish  priest, 
"rich  in  holy  thought  and  work";  the  higher  clergy  he  handles 
in  a  genuine  anti-sacerdotal  spirit.  In  the  "Pardoner,"  laden 
with  his  relics,  and  with  his  wallet 

"Brimful  of  pardons,  come  from.  Rome  all  hot," 

he  depicts  a  character  who  even  then  excited  scorn  and  repro- 
bation. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  in  many  of  the  early  writers  w^ho 
have  been  referred  to,  how  reverence  for  religion  and  for  the 
Church  is  blended  with  bitter  censure  of  the  arrogance  and 
wealth  of  ecclesiastics;  how  the  spiritual  office  of  the  Pope  is 
distinguished  from  his  temporal  power.  In  the  one  character 
he  is  revered,  in  the  other  he  is  denounced.  The  fiction  of 
Constan tine's  donation  of  his  western  dominions  to  Pope  Sil- 
vester, which  was  current  in  the  Middle  Ages,  accounted  for  all 
the  evils  of  the  Church,  in  the  judgment  of  the  enemies  of  the 
temporal  power.  There  was  the  source  of  the  pride  and  wealth 
of  the  popes.     Dante  adverts  to  it  in  the  Hues :  — 

"Ah,  Constan  tine  of  how  much  ill  was  mother, 
Not  thy  conversion,  but  that  marriage-dower, 
Wlaich  the  first  wealthy  father  took  from  thee."' 

And  in  another  place,  he  refers  to  Constantine,  who 

"Became  a  Greek  by  ceding  to  the  Pastor," 

and  says  of  him  in  Paradise, 

"Now  knoweth  he  how  all  the  ill  deduced 

From  his  good  action  is  not  harmful  to  him, 
Although  the  world  thereby  may  be  destroyed.  "- 

We  find  a  like  lament  respecting  the  fatal  gift  to  Silvester,  in 
the  Waldensian  poem,  "The  Noble  Lesson."  Walter  von  der 
Vogelweide  makes  the  angels,  when  Constantine  endowed  Sil- 
vester with  worldly  power,  cry  out  with  grief;    and  justly,  he 

•  Inf.   xix.    115.  "Ahi,  Costantin,  di  quanto  mal  fu  matre, 

Non  la  tua  conversion,  ma  quella  dote 
Che  da  te  prese  il  primo  ricco  patre !  " 

^  Parad.  xx.  58.  "Ora  conosce  come  '1  mal,  dedutto 

Dal  suo  bene  operar,  non  gli  e  nocivo, 
Avvegna  che  sia  '1  ondo  indi  distrutto." 


30  THE  REFORMATION 

adds,  since  the  popes  were  to  use  that  power  to  ruin  the  em- 
perors and  to  stir  up  the  princes  against  them/  These  bitter 
lamentations  continue  to  be  heard  from  advocates  of  reform, 
until  the  tale  of  the  alleged  donation  was  discovered  to  be  des- 
titute of  truth.^ 

The  anti-hierarchical  spirit  was  powerfully  reinforced  by  the 
legists.  From  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bologna  rose  in  importance  as  the  great  seat  of  the 
revived  study  of  Roman  jurisprudence.  As  Paris  was  the 
seminary  of  theology,  Bologna  was  the  nursery  of  law.  Law 
was  cultivated,  however,  at  other  universities.^  That  a  class 
of  laymen  should  arise  who  were  devoted  to  the  study  and  ex- 
position of  the  ancient  law  was  in  itself  a  significant  event.  The 
legists  were  the  natural  defenders  of  the  State,  the  powerful 
auxiliaries  of  the  kings.*  Their  influence  was  in  opposition  to 
feudalism  and  on  the  side  of  monarchy,  and  placed  bulwarks 
round  the  civil  authority  in  its  contest  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  Church.  The  hierarchy  were  confronted  by  a 
body  of  learned  men,  the  guardians  of  a  venerable  code,  who 
claimed  for  the  kings  the  rights  of  Ca?sar,  and  could  bring  for- 
ward in  opposition  to  the  canons  of  the  Church  canons  of  an 
earher  date.^ 

The  effectual  reaction  against  the  Papacy  dates  from  the 
reign  of  Boniface  VIII.,  who  cherished  to  the  full  extent  the 
theories  of  Hildebrand  and  Innocent  III.,  but  was  destitute  of 
their  sagacity  and  practical  wisdom.^  The  resistance  that  he 
provoked  sprang  from  the  spirit  which  we  have  termed  national- 
ism. The  contest  in  which  the  Hohenstaufen  had  perished, 
was  taken  up  by  the  King  of  France,  the  country  which  through- 
out the  Middle  Ages  had  been  the  most  faithful  protector  of  the 
Papacy,  and  whose  royal  house  had  been  established  by  the 

*  Kurtz,  Gsch.  d.  deutsch.  Lit.,  i.  50.  The  sonnet — "Der  Pfaffen  wahl"  — 
is  given  by  Kurtz,  p.  56. 

2  The  first  public  and  formal  exposure  of  the  fiction  was  made  by  Laurentius 
Valla  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

^  Savigny,  Geschichte  des  rom.  Recht,  iii.  152  seq. 

*  Laurent,  Feodalite  et  I'tJglise,  p.  630. 

*  Milman,  vi.  241. 

*  Drumann,  Gsch.  Bonifacius  des  Achten  (1852).  An  apologetic  biographer 
of  Boniface  is  Tosti,  Storia  di  Bonifacio  VIII.  e  de'  suoi  tempi  (1846).  In  the 
same  vein  is  the  article  of  Wiseman  (in  review  of  Sismondi),  Essays  on  Various 
Subjects,  iii.  161  seq.  Schwab,  in  the  (Roman  Catholic)  Quartalschrift  (1846, 
No.  1),  considers  that  Tosti  and  Wiseman  are  unduly  biased  in  favor  of  Boni- 
face.    His  reign  was  from  1294  to  1303. 


CONFLICT    OF   PHILIP    VI.    AND    BONIFACE   VIII.  31 

popes  on  an  Italian  throne  as  a  bulwark  against  the  Empire. 
It  was  ordained  that  their  protectors  should  become  their 
conquerors/  The  conflict  of  Boniface  with  PhiUp  the  Fair  is  of 
remarkable  interest  for  many  reasons.  One  source  of  Boniface's 
anger  was  the  levying  by  Philip  of  extraordinary  taxes  on  the 
clergy  and  his  prohibiting  of  the  exportation  of  gold  and  silver 
from  his  kingdom.  Another  point,  in  the  highest  degree 
interesting,  is  the  manner  in  which  the  rights  of  the  laity  in 
relation  to  the  clergy  come  up  for  discussion.  One  defining  char- 
acteristic of  the  Protestant  Reformation  was  the  release  of  the 
laity  from  subserviency  to  clerical  control.  There  is  something 
ominous  in  the  opening  words  which  give  its  title  to  one  of  the 
famous  bulls  of  this  pontiff:  Clericis  laicos.  It  begins  with 
reminding  Philip  that  long  tradition  exhibits  laymen  as  hostile 
and  mischievous  to  clergymen.  Not  less  significant,  in  the 
light  of  subsequent  history,  is  one  of  the  responses  of  Philip  to 
the  Pope's  indignant  complaints,  in  which  the  king  affirms 
that  "Holy  Mother  Church,  the  Spouse  of  Christ,  is  composed 
not  only  of  clergymen,  but  also  of  laymen;"  that  clergymen 
are  guilty  of  an  abuse  when  they  try  to  appropriate  exclusively 
to  themselves  the  ecclesiastical  liberty  with  which  the  grace  of 
Christ  has  made  us  free;  that  Christ  himself  commanded  to 
render  to  Csesar  the  things  that  are  Cijesar's.  More  remarkable 
still  is  the  fact  that  Philip  twice  summoned  to  his  support  the 
estates  of  his  realm,  and  that  the  nation  stood  firmly  by  its 
excommunicated  sovereign.  Tlie  pontifical  assertions  in  regard 
to  the  two  swords,  the  supremacy  of  the  ecclesiastical  over 
the  temporal  power,  and  the  subjection  of  every  creature  to 
the  Pope,  who  judges  all  and  is  judged  by  none,  were  met  by 
a  determined  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  French  nation.  When 
Boniface  summoned  the  French  clergy  to  Rome  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  the  king,  the  act  roused  a  tempest  of  indignation.  The 
Papal  Bull,  snatched  from  the  hand  of  the  Legate,  was  publicly 
burned  in  Notre  Dame,  on  the  11th  of  February,  1302.  The 
clergy  of  France  addressed  to  the  incensed  pontiff  a  denial  of 
his  proposition  that  in  secular  matters  the  Pope  stands  above 
the  King.  Finally  all  France  united  in  an  appeal  to  a  general 
council.  It  was  by  two  laymen,  William  of  Nogaret,  keeper  of 
the  king's  seal,  and  Sciarra  Colonna,  that  the  personal  attack 

*  Gregorovius,  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom  im  Mittelalter,  v.  560. 


32  THE  REFORMATION 

was  made  on  Boniface  at  Anagni,  which  resulted  shortly  after- 
wards in  his  death  (1303). 

We  have  now  reached  the  point  when  the  prestige  of  the 
Papacy  began  to  wane  as  rapidly  as,  in  the  preceding  centuries, 
it  had  grown.  This  fall  was  due  to  the  expansion  of  intelli- 
gence, to  the  general  change  in  society  to  which  reference  has 
been  made.  But  it  was  accelerated  by  influences  which  were 
subject,  to  a  considerable  extent,  to  the  control  of  the  popes 
themselves.  It  is  the  period  of  the  Babylonian  captivity,  or 
the  long  residence  of  the  popes  at  Avignon,  and  of  the  great 
schism.  During  a  great  part  of  this  period  the  Papacy  was 
enslaved  to  France,  and  administered  in  the  interest  of  the 
French  court.  This  situation  impelled  the  popes  to  unjust 
and  aggressive  measures  relating  to  Germany,  England,  and 
other  Catholic  countries,  measures  which  could  not  fail  to  pro- 
voke earnest  resentment.  France  was  willing,  as  long  as  the 
Papacy  remained  her  tool,  to  indulge  the  popes  in  extravagant 
assertions  of  authority,  which  could  only  have  the  effect  to  aggra- 
vate the  opposition  on  the  part  of  other  nations.  The  revenues 
of  the  court  at  Avignon  were  supplied  by  means  of  extortions 
and  usurpations  which  had  been  hitherto  without  example. 
The  multiplied  reservations  of  ecclesiastical  offices,  even  of 
bishoprics  and  parishes,  which  were  bestowed  by  the  popes 
upon  unworthy  persons,  or  given  in  commendam  to  persons 
already  possessed  of  lucrative  places;  the  claim  of  the  first 
fruits  or  annates  —  a  tribute  from  new  holders  of  benefices  — 
and  the  levying  of  burdensome  taxes  upon  all  ranks  of  the 
clergy,  especially  those  of  the  lower  grades,  were  among  the 
methods  resorted  to  for  replenishing  the  papal  treasury.  The 
effect  of  these  various  forms  of  ecclesiastical  oppression  upon 
public  opinion  was  the  greater,  when  it  was  known  that  the 
wealth  thus  gained  went  to  support  at  Avignon  an  extremely 
luxurious  and  profligate  court,  the  boundless  immorality  of 
which  has  been  vividly  depicted  by  Petrarch,  an  eye-witness. 

The  attempt  of  John  XXII.  to  maintain  the  absolute  su- 
premacy of  the  Pope  over  the  Empire  and  to  deprive  Louis  of 
Bavaria  of  his  crown,  that  he  might  place  it  on  the  head  of  the 
King  of  France,  had  an  effect  in  Germany  analogous  to  that 
produced  in  France  by  the  conflict  of  Boniface  and  Philip.  The 
imperial   rights   found   the   boldest   defenders.     At   length,   in 


LOSS   OF   PRESTIGE  33 

1338,  the  electoral  princes  solemnly  declared  that  the  Roman 
king  receives  his  appointment  and  authority  solely  from  the 
electoral  college. 

In  England,  from  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  under 
Henry  II.,  in  1164,  there  had  been  manifest  a  disposition  to 
limit  the  jurisdiction  and  set  bounds  to  the  encroachments  of 
the  Church,  and  especially  to  curtail  foreign  ecclesiastical  inter- 
ference in  the  afTairs  of  the  kingdom.^  Now  that  the  Papacy 
had  become  the  instrument  of  France,  this  spirit  of  resistance 
was  naturally  quickened.  Two  important  statutes  of  Edward 
III.  were  the  consequence :  the  statute  of  pro  visors,  which 
devolved  on  the  King  the  right  to  fill  the  Church  offices  that  had 
been  reserved  to  the  Pope;  and  the  statute  of  pra?munire, 
which  forbade  subjects  to  bring,  by  direct  prosecution  or  appeal, 
before  any  foreign  tribunal,  a  cause  that  fell  under  the  King's 
jurisdiction. 

In  this  contest  of  the  fourteenth  century,  "monarchy"  was 
the  watchword  of  the  adversaries  of  the  Papacy,  the  symbol  of 
the  new  generation  that  was  breaking  loose  from  the  dominant 
ideas  of  the  Middle  Ages.  "The  monarchists  rose  against  the 
papists."  ^  In  France  it  was  the  rights  of  the  throne  and  its 
independence  of  the  Church  which  were  maintained  by  the 
jurists,  and  by  the  schoolmen,  as  John  of  Paris  and  Occam, 
who  came  to  their  help.  In  Germany  it  was  the  old  imperial 
rights  as  defined  in  the  civil  law,  and  as  preceding  even  the 
existence  of  the  Church,  that  were  defended.  In  opposition 
to  the  political  ideas  of  his  master  in  theology,  Thomas  Aquinas, 
Dante  wrote  his  noted  treatise  on  monarchy,  in  advocacy  of 
Ghibelline  principles,  against  the  claims  of  the  popes  to  tem- 
poral power.  Apart  from  the  great  infiuence  of  this  book,  and 
outside  of  Italy,  the  question  of  the  origin  of  the  Empire  and  the 
nature  of  monarchy  in  general,  led  to  earnest  investigation. 
In  Germany  especially,  legists  and  theologians  immersed  them- 
selves in  historical  and  critical  inquiries  upon  the  foundation 
of  civil  authority,  and  the  ground  on  which  papal  interferences 
with  secular  government  professed  to  repose.  These  writers 
did  not  stop  with  confuting  the  notion  that  the  Empire  was 

'  The  Constitutions  of  Clarendon   are  fully  described  by   Reuter,   Geschichte 
Alexanders  d.  Dritten  u.  d.  Kirche  seiner  Zeit.,  3  vols.  (1860). 
^  Gregorovius,  vi.   124. 


84  THE  REFORMATION 

transferred  by  papal  authority  from  the  East  to  the  West. 
The  celebrated  work  of  Marsilius  of  Padua,  the  "  Defensor 
Pacis,"  went  beyond  the  ideas  of  the  age,  and  assailed  even  the 
spiritual  authority  of  the  Roman  bishop.  It  denied  that  Peter 
was  supreme  over  the  other  Apostles,  and  even  denied  that 
he  can  be  proved  to  have  ever  visited  Rome.  This  work  main- 
tained the  supreme  authority  of  a  general  council.  The  Minor- 
ites, or  schismatical  Franciscans,  who  insisted  on  the  rule  of 
poverty  as  binding  on  the  clergy,  and  accused  John  XXII.  of 
heresy  for  rejecting  their  principle,  contended  on  the  same 
side.  William  of  Occam  seconded  Marsilius  in  a  treatise  entitled, 
"Eight  Questions  on  the  Power  of  the  Pope."  Occam,  like 
Dante,  rested  his  denial  of  the  validity  of  the  alleged  donation 
of  Constantine  on  the  ground  that  an  emperor  had  no  right  to 
renounce  the  inalienable  rights  of  the  Empire.  He  placed  the 
Emperor  and  the  General  Council  above  the  Pope,  as  his  judges. 
Coronation,  he  said,  was  a  human  ceremony,  which  any  bishop 
could  perform.  "These  bold  writings  attacked  the  collective 
hierarchy  in  all  its  fundamental  principles;  they  inquired,  with 
a  sharpness  of  criticism  before  unknown,  into  the  nature  of  the 
priestly  office;  they  restricted  the  notion  of  heresy,  to  which 
the  Church  had  given  so  wide  an  extension;  they  appealed, 
finally,  to  Holy  Scripture,  as  the  only  valid  authority  in  matters 
of  faith.  As  fervent  monarchists,  these  theologians  subjected 
the  Church  to  the  State.  Their  heretical  tendencies  announced 
a  new  process  in  the  minds  of  men,  in  which  the  unity  of 
the  Catholic  Church  went  down."  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
among  the  principal  literary  champions  of  Louis  of  Bavaria 
there  was  found  a  representative  of  each  of  the  cultivated 
nations  of  the  West.^ 

During  the  schism  which  ensued  upon  the  election  of  Urban 
VI.,  in  1378,  there  was  presented  before  Christendom  the  spec- 
tacle of  rival  popes  imprecating  curses  upon  each  other;  each 
with  his  court  to  be  maintained  by  taxes  and  contributions, 
which  had  to  be  largely  increased  on  account  of  the  division. 
When  men  were  compelled  to  choose  between  rival  claimants 
of  the  office,  it  was  inevitable  that  there  should  arise  a  still 

*  Gregorovius,  vi.  129,  130.  Copious  extracts  from  the  Defensor  Pacis, 
which  was  the  joint  production  of  Marsilius  of  Padua  and  John  of  Jandun,  the 
Emperor  Louis's  physician,  are  given  by  Gieseler,  III.  iv.  c.  1.  §  99,  n.  15. 


THE   MONARCHISTS   AND   THE   PAPISTS  35 

deeper  investigation  into  the  origin  and  grounds  of  papal  au- 
thority. Inquirers  reverted  to  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church,  in 
order  to  find  both  the  causes  and  the  cure  of  the  dreadful  evils 
under  which  Christian  society  was  suffering.  More  than  one 
jurist  and  theologian  called  attention  to  the  ambition  of  the 
popes  for  secular  rule  and  to  their  oppressive  domination  over 
the  Church,  as  the  prime  fountain  of  this  frightful  disorder. 

We  have  now  to  glance  at  the  vigorous  and  prolonged  en- 
deavors, which  proved  for  the  most  part  abortive,  to  reform  the 
Church  "in  head  and  members."  Princes  intervened  to  make 
peace  between  popes,  as  popes  had  before  intervened  to  make 
peace  between  princes,^  It  is  the  era  of  the  Reforming  Coun- 
cils of  Pisa,  Constance,  and  Basel,  when,  largely  under  the  lead 
of  the  Paris  theologians,  a  reformation  in  the  morals  and  ad- 
ministration of  the  Church  was  sought  through  the  agency  of 
these  great  assembUes.^  The  theory  on  which  D'Ailly,  Gerson, 
and  the  other  leaders  who  cooperated  with  them,  proceeded, 
was  that  of  episcopal,  as  contrasted  with  papal,  supremacy. 
The  Pope  was  primate  of  the  Church,  but  bishops  derived  their 
authority  and  grace  for  the  discharge  of  their  office,  not  from 
him,  but  from  the  same  source  as  that  from  which  he  derived 
his  powers.  The  Church,  when  gathered  together  by  its  repre- 
sentatives in  a  general  council,  is  the  supreme  tribunal,  to 
which  the  Pope  himself  is  subordinate  and  amenable.  Their 
aim  was  to  reduce  him  to  the  rank  of  a  constitutional  instead 
of  an  absolute  monarch.  The  Galilean  theologians  held  to  an 
infalHbility  residing  somewhere  in  the  Church;  most  of  them, 
and  ultimately  all  of  them,  placing  this  infallibility  in  oecu- 
menical councils.  The  flattering  hopes  under  which  the  Council 
of  Pisa  opened  its  proceedings  were  doomed  to  disappointment, 
in  consequence  of  the  reluctance  of  the  reformers  to  push 
through  their  measures  without  a  pope,  and  the  failure  of 
Alexander  V.  to  redeem  the  pledges  which  he  had  given  them 
prior  to  his  election.  Moreover,  the  schism  continued,  with 
three  popes  in  the  room  of  two.  The  Council  of  Constance 
began  under  the  fairest  auspices.  The  resolve  to  vote  by  nations 
was  a  significant  sign  of  a  new  order  of  things,  and  crushed  the  de- 
sign of  the  flagitious  Pope,  John  XXIII. ,  to  control  the  assembly 
by  the  preponderance  of  Italian  votes.    Solemn  declarations  of 

'  Laurent,  La  R6}orme,  p.  29.  2  (1409-1443.) 


36  THE  REFORMATION 

the  supremacy  and  authority  of  the  Council  were  adopted,  and 
were  carried  out  in  the  actual  deposition  of  the  infamous  Pope. 
But  the  plans  of  reform  were  mostly  wrecked  on  the  same  rock 
on  which  they  had  broken  at  Pisa.  A  pope  must  be  elected; 
and  Martin  V.,  once  chosen,  by  skillful  management  and  by 
separate  arrangements  with  different  princes,  was  able  to  undo, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  salutary  work  of  the  Council,  and  even 
before  its  adjournment  to  reassert  the  very  doctrine  of  papal 
superiority  which  the  Council  had  repudiated.  The  substantial 
failure  of  this  Council,  the  most  august  ecclesiastical  assemblage 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  achieve  reforms  which  thoughtful  and 
good  men  everywhere  deemed  indispensable,  was  a  proof  that 
some  more  radical  means  of  reformation  would  have  to  be 
adopted.  But  another  grand  effort  in  the  same  direction  was 
put  forth;  and  the  Council  of  Basel,  notwithstanding  that  it 
adopted  numerous  measures  of  a  beneficent  character,  which 
were  acceptable  to  the  Catholic  nations,  had  at  last  no  better 
issue;  for  most  of  the  advantages  that  were  granted  to  them 
and  the  concessions  that  were  made  by  the  popes,  especially 
to  Germany,  they  contrived  afterward,  by  adroit  diplomacy, 
to  recall. 

If  we  look  at  the  condition  of  Europe  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, after  the  time  of  the  schism  and  the  reforming  councils, 
we  observe  that  political  considerations  preponderate  in  the 
room  of  distinctly  ecclesiastical  motives  and  feelings.^  Na- 
tional rivalries  and  the  ambition  of  princes  are  ever3^where 
prominent.  The  sovereigns  of  Europe  are  endeavoring  to 
augment  their  power  at  the  expense  of  the  Church,  especially 
by  taking  into  their  hands  ecclesiastical  appointments.  It  was 
during  the  fifteenth  century  that  the  European  monarchies 
were  acquiring  a  firm  organization.  In  England  the  wars  of 
the  Roses  ended  with  the  accession  of  Henry  VIL,  and  in  his 
son  and  successor  the  rights  of  both  lines  were  united.  In 
France  the  century  of  strife  with  England  had  been  followed 
by  the  reduction  of  the  great  feudatories  to  subjection  to  the 
crown.    In  Spain,  Castile  and  Aragon  were  united  by  the  mar- 


'  The  controversy,  during  this  period,  between  the  advocates  of  the  aristo- 
cratic or  Gallican  and  of  the  papal  systems,  is  described,  with  copious  citations 
from  the  polemical  writers  who  participated  in  it,  by  Gieseler,  Church  History, 
III.  V.  i.  §  136. 


MORAL   FALL   OF   THE   PAPACY  37 

riage  of  their  sovereigns,  and  their  kingdom  was  consolidated 
by  the  conquest  of  Granada. 

At  this  critical  epoch,  when  it  would  have  been  in  the  highest 
degree  difficult  for  pontiffs  devoted  to  the  interests  of  rehgion 
to  breast  the  dominant  spirit  of  nationalism,  it  appeared  to  be 
the  sole  ambition  of  a  series  of  popes  to  aggrandize  their  families 
or  to  strengthen  the  states  of  the  Church/  No  longer  absorbed 
in  any  grand  pubhc  object,  Uke  the  crusades,  they  plotted  and 
fought  to  build  up  principalities  in  Italy  for  their  relatives.  To 
the  furtherance  of  such  worldly  schemes,  they  often  applied  the 
treasures  which  they  had  procured  by  taxing  the  Church  and 
from  the  sale  of  church  offices.  The  vicious  character  of  several 
of  them  augmented  the  scandal  which  this  corrupt  policy  created. 
Sixtus  IV.,  aiming  to  found  a  principality  for  his  nephew,  — 
or,  according  to  Machiavelli,  his  illegitimate  son  Girolamo 
Riario,  —  favored  the  conspiracy  against  the  lives  of  Julian  and 
Lorenzo  de  Medici,  which  resulted  in  the  assassination  of  the 
former  on  the  steps  of  the  altar,  during  the  celebration  of  high 
mass.  He  then  joined  Naples  in  making  war  on  Florence.  In 
order  to  gain  Ferrara  for  his  nephew,  he  first  incited  Venice  to 
war ;  but  when  his  nephew  went  over  to  the  side  of  Naples,  the 
Pope  forsook  his  Venetian  aUies  and  excommunicated  them. 
Little  regard  was  paid  to  this  act,  and  his  consequent  chagrin 
hastened  his  death.  Innocent  VIII.,  besides  advancing  the 
fortunes  of  seven  illegitimate  children,  and  waging  two  wars 
with  Naples,  received  an  annual  tribute  from  the  Sultan  for 
detaining  his  brother  and  rival  in  prison,  instead  of  sending  him 
to  lead  a  force  against  the  Turks,  the  enemies  of  Christendom. 
Alexander  VI.,  whose  wickedness  brings  to  mind  the  dark  days 
of  the  Papacy  in  the  tenth  century,  occupied  himself  in  building 


^  No  adequate  impression  of  the  secularization  of  the  Papacy  can  be  gained 
without  the  reference  to  the  historical  details.  One  of  the  specially  valuable 
works  on  the  subject  is  "The  Cambridge  Modern  History,  The  Renaissance," 
vol.  I.  p.  653  seq.  ch.  xix.,  "The  Eve  of  the  Reformation,"  by  Henry  C.  Lea. 
Another  highly  instructive  work  is  the  late  Bishop  Creighton's  History  of  the 
Papacy  during  the  Period  of  the  Reformation,  5  vols.  (1882-1894).  In  particular 
the  period  from  1420  to  1520  should  be  examined.  The  work  of  chief  value  from 
Roman  Catholic  sources  is  that  of  Pastor,  Geschichte  der  Papste  seit  dem  Avsgang 
des  Mittelalters  etc.  3  vols.  (1886  seq.)  ;  in  the  English  translation,  6  vols.  It 
terminates  at  the  death  of  Pope  Julius  II.  (1513).  The  author  had  access  to  the 
Vatican  papers.  It  has  the  merit  of  relating  frankly  much  of  the  evil  in  the  lives 
of  the  Popes  during  the  period  reviewed.  See,  for  example,  the  pontificate  of 
Sixtus  IV. 


432005 


38  THE  REFORMATION 

up  a  principality  for  his  favorite  son,  that  monster  of  depravity, 
Caesar  Borgia,  and  in  amassing  treasures,  by  base  and  cruel 
means,  for  the  support  of  the  licentious  Roman  Court.  He  is 
said  to  have  died  of  the  poison  which  he  had  caused  to  be  pre- 
pared for  a  rich  cardinal,  who  bribed  the  head-cook  to  set  it 
before  the  Pope  himself.  If  JuHus  II.  satisfied  the  ambition 
of  his  family  in  a  more  peaceable  way,  he  still  found  his  enjoy- 
ment in  war  and  conquest,  and  made  it  his  sole  task  to  extend 
the  States  of  the  Church.  He  organized  alliances  and  defeated 
one  enemy  after  another,  forcing  Venice  to  succumb,  and 
not  hesitating,  old  man  as  he  was,  to  take  the  field  himself, 
in  winter.  Having  brought  in  the  French,  and  joined  the 
league  of  Cambray  for  the  sake  of  subduing  Venice,  he  called 
to  his  side  the  Venetians  for  the  expulsion  of  the  French 
(1510).* 

This  absorption  of  the  popes  in  selfish  and  secular  schemes 
was  not  in  an  age  of  ignorance,  but  just  at  the  period  when 
learning  had  revived  and  when  Europe  had  entered  upon  an 
era  of  inventions  and  discoveries  which  were  destined  to  put  a 
new  face  upon  civilization.  The  demoralized  condition  of  the 
Church  was  a  fact  that  could  not  fail  to  draw  to  itself  general 
attention. 

Leo  X.,  made  a  cardinal  at  the  age  of  thirteen  and  pope  at 
thirty-seven,  whose  pontificate  was  to  be  signalized  by  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Reformation,  was  free  from  the  revolting  vices 
which  had  degraded  several  of  his  near  predecessors,  and  from 
the  violent  and  belligerent  temper  of  Julius  II.,  who  immediately 
preceded  him.^  Yet  the  influence  of  his  character  and  policy 
was  calculated  to  strengthen  the  disaffection  toward  the  Papacy. 
Sarpi,  in  his  "History  of  the  Council  of  Trent,"  after  praising 
the  learning,  taste,  and  HberaHty  of  Leo,  remarks  with  fine  wit, 
that  "he  would  have  been  a  perfect  Pope,  if  he  had  combined 
with  these  qualities  some  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  religion 
and  a  greater  inclination  to  piety,  for  neither  of  which  he  mani- 

*  Germany  embodied  its  complaints  against  the  corrupt  and  extortionate  ad- 
ministration of  Julius,  as  related  to  that  country,  in  Gravamina.     A  revolt  against 
ecclesiastics,  or  a  great  defection  from  the  Roman  Church,  like  that  of  the  Bo- 
hemians,  were  declared  to  be  imminent,   if  these  evils  were  not  corrected. — 
Gieseler,  iii.  v.  1,  §  135,  n.  8. 

*  There  is  no  ground  for  believing  the  scandalous  charges  of  immorality  which 
have  been  made  against  him.  They  are  brought  together  from  the  original 
sources  in  Bayle's  Dictionary. 


CHARACTER   OF   LEO   X.  39 

fested  much  concern."*  Even  Pallavicini,  the  opponent  of 
Sarpi,  laments  that  Leo  called  about  him  those  who  were  rather 
familiar  with  the  fables  of  Greece  and  the  delights  of  the  poets 
than  with  the  history  of  the  Church  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
fathers.  He  deplores  the  devotion  of  Leo  to  profane  studies, 
to  hunting,  jesting,  and  pageants;  to  employments  ill  suited 
to  his  exalted  office.  If  he  had  been  surrounded  by  theologians, 
Pallavicini  thinks  that  he  would  have  been  more  cautious  in 
distributing  indulgences  and  that  the  heresies  of  Luther  might, 
perhaps,  have  been  quickly  suppressed  by  the  writings  of  learned 
men.^  The  Italian  historians  Muratori  and  Guicciardini,  in 
connection  with  their  praise  of  Leo,  state  the  misgivings  that 
were  felt  by  wise  men  at  the  costly  pomp  which  he  displayed 
at  his  coronation,  and  censure  his  laxity  in  the  administration 
of  his  office.^  The  chief  pastor  of  the  Church  was  seen  to  give 
himself  up  to  the  fascinations  of  literature,  art,  and  music.  In 
his  gay  and  luxurious  court,  rehgion  was  a  matter  of  subor- 
dinate concern.  Vast  sums  of  money  which  were  gathered  from 
Christian  people  were  lavished  upon  his  relatives.^  Leo's  in- 
fluence fostered  what  Ranke  has  well  called  "a  sort  of  intel- 
lectual sensuahty." 

It  is  true  that  occasionally  the  interests  of  sovereigns  moved 
them  tacitly  to  admit  pretensions  on  the  sides  of  the  popes,  that 
were  fast  becoming  obsolete.  In  1452  Nicholas  V.  granted  to 
Alphonso,  King  of  Portugal,  the  privilege  of  subduing  and 
reducing  to  perpetual  servitude,  Saracens,  Pagans,  and  other 
infidels  and  enemies  of  Christ,  and  of  appropriating  to  himself 
all  of  their  kingdoms,  territories,  and  property  of  whatever  sort, 
pubUc  or  private;    and  two    years  afterwards,   by  the  same 

*  "E  sarebbe  stato  un  perfetto  Pontefice,  se  con  queste  avesse  congiunto  qualche 
cognizione  delle  cose  della  religione,  ed  aliquanto  piu  d'inclinazione  alia  piet^, 
dell'  una  e  dell'  altra  delle  quali  non  mostrava  aver  gran  cura."  Istoria  del  Con- 
cilio  Trid.,  lib.  i.  (torn.  i.  5).  Not  very  different  is  the  estimate  of  a  modern 
Catholic  writer:  "Er  besass  herrliche  Eigenschaften  des  Geistes  und  Herzens 
eine  feine  Bildung,  Kenntniss  und  Liebe  fiir  Kunst  und  Wissenschaft ;  aber  fur 
einen  Papst  war  er  viel  zu  vergniigungsiichtig,  verschwenderisch  und  lander- 
siichtig."     J.  I.  Ritter,  Kirchengeschichte,  ii.   143. 

^  Istoria  di  Concilio  di  Trento,   torn.   i.   lib.   i.   c.   ii. 

^  Muratori,  Annali  d'  Italia,  torn.  xiv.  156.  Guicciardini,  Istoria  d'  Italia, 
torn.  vi.  p.  81.     See,  also,  tom.  vii.  pp.  108,  109. 

*  Ranke,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  i.  255.  Roscoe  (Life  of  Leo  X.,  iv.  ch.  xxiv.) 
defends  him  against  the  imputation  of  unchastity,  but  does  not  conceal  the 
pleasure  he  took  in  buffoonery,  and  mildly  regrets  his  double-dealing  in  his  inter- 
course with  sovereigns. 


40  THE  REFORMATION 

"apostolic  authority,"  he  bestowed  on  him  the  new  discoveries 
on  the  western  coast  of  Africa.  Alexander  VI.,  in  virtue  of 
rights  derived  from  Peter  to  the  Apostolic  See,  assumed  to  give 
away,  "of  his  mere  Uberality,"  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  all 
the  newly  discovered  regions  of  America,  from  a  line  stretching 
one  hundred  leagues  westward  of  the  Azores,  and  extending 
"from  the  arctic  to  the  antarctic  pole."  Afterwards  Ferdinand 
allowed  to  the  King  of  Portugal  that  this  hne  should  run  three 
hundred  and  seventy,  instead  of  one  hundred,  leagues  to  the 
west  of  the  Azores.  But  the  importance  of  the  popes  in  this 
period  was  chiefly  dependent  on  their  temporal  power  in  Italy, 
and  on  the  poHtical  combinations  which  they  were  able  to 
organize.  The  concessions  which  they  obtained  from  princes 
were  often  of  more  apparent  than  real  consequence.  This  fact 
is  illustrated  in  the  surrender  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  by 
Francis  I.  to  Leo  X.   (1516). 

In  1438,  after  the  Council  of  Basel  had  passed  its  reforming 
measures,  Charles  VII.  assembled  the  clergy  of  France  in  a 
great  Synod  at  Bourges.  Nearly  two  centuries  before,  that 
devoted  son  of  the  Church,  Louis  IX.,  —  St.  Louis  of  France,  — 
had  issued  the  famous  Pragmatic  Sanction,  the  charter  of  Gal- 
lican  liberties,  by  which  interference  with  free  elections  to  bene- 
fices in  France,  and  exactions  and  assessments  of  money  on  the 
part  of  the  popes,  except  on  urgent  occasions,  and  with  the 
king's  consent,  were  forbidden.  With  this  example  before  them, 
the  Synod  of  Bourges  asserted  the  rights  of  national  churches, 
not  only  above  the  Pope,  but  also  above  the  Council,  a  part 
but  not  all  of  whose  reformatory  decrees  it  adopted.  It  declared 
the  Pope  subject  to  a  general  council,  and  bound  to  convoke 
a  council  every  ten  years.  The  right  of  nomination  to  benefices 
was  denied  to  the  Pope,  except  in  a  few  instances  specially  re- 
served, and  appeals  to  him  were  restricted  to  the  gravest  cases. 
Among  the  provisions  of  the  Bourges  Sanction  was  the  denun- 
ciation of  annates  and  first-fruits  as  simony.  The  efforts  of 
Pius  II.  and  Paul  II.  to  procure  the  repeal  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction  were  steadily  resisted  by  the  Parliament  of  Paris. 
When,  therefore,  Leo  X.  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  Francis  I., 
after  his  victorious  campaign  in  Italy,  the  abandonment  of  the 
Sanction,  it  seemed  to  be  a  great  advance  on  the  side  of  the 
Papacy.     In  reality,   however,   although   the  Galilean  Church 


SECULAR   SPIRIT   OF   THE   PAPACY  41 

was  robbed  of  its  liberties,  the  Pope  gained  only  the  annates, 
while  the  power  of  nominating  to  the  great  benefices  fell  to  the 
king.  Moreover,  the  coercion  that  was  required  to  bring  the 
ParUament  to  register  the  new  Concordat,  and  the  indignation 
which  it  awakened  throughout  France,  proved  that  it  resulted 
from  no  change  in  the  sentiments  of  the  nation. 

The  long  struggle  of  Francis  I.  and  Charles  V.,  and  the  way 
in  which  it  affected  the  fortunes  of  Protestantism,  afford  a  con- 
stant illustration  of  the  predominance  which  had  been  gained 
by  secular  and  poHtical,  over  purely  ecclesiastical  interests. 
There  were  critical  moments  when  not  only  the  King  and  the 
Emperor,  but  the  Pope  also,  were  led  from  motives  of  policy  to 
become  the  virtual  alHes  of  the  Protestant  cause. 

It  is  a  striking  incident,  and  yet  illustrative  of  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  that  the  Emperor  Maximilian  sent  word  to  the  Elector 
Frederic  of  Saxony  to  take  good  care  of  Luther  —  "we  might, 
perhaps,  have  need  of  him  some  time  or  other."  ^  For  fear  that 
Charles  V.  would  be  too  much  strengthened  by  the  destruction 
of  the  Protestant  League  of  Smalcald,  Pope  Paul  IIL  recalled 
the  troops  which  he  had  lent  to  the  Emperor,  and  encouraged 
Francis  L  to  prosecute  his  design  of  aiding  the  Protestants. 
The  Pope  sent  a  message  to  the  French  king,  "to  help  those 
who  were  not  yet  beaten."  At  the  moment  when  the  Protestant 
cause  might  seem  to  be  on  the  verge  of  extinction,  the  Pope  and 
the  King  of  France  appear  as  its  defenders.  Francis  even 
sought  to  make  the  Turks  his  allies  in  his  struggle  against 
the  Emperor.  What  a  change  was  this  from  the  days  3;\^hen 
the  princes  and  nations  of  Europe  were  banded  together,  at  the 
call  of  the  Church,  to  wrest  the  holy  places  from  the  infidels !  ^ 

Thus,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  there  are 
two  facts  which  arrest  attention :  — 

First,  the  development  and  consohdation  of  the  nations,  in 
their  separate  individuality,  each  with  its  own  language,  culture, 
laws,  and  institutions,  and  animated  by  a  national  spirit  that 
chafed  under  foreign  ecclesiastical  control. 

Secondly,  the  secularizing  of  the  Papacy.  The  popes  had 
virtually  renounced  the  lofty  position  which  they  still  assumed 
to  hold,  and  which,  to  a  certain  extent,  they  had  once  really 

>  Ranke,  Deutsch.  Gsch.,  i.  216,  History  of  the  Popes,  i.  86. 
*  Ranke,   DeiUsch.   Gsch.,   i.   83. 


42  THE  REFORMATION 

held,  of  moral  and  religious  guardians  of  society.  As  temporal 
rulers,  they  were  immersed  in  political  contests  and  schemes  of 
ambition.  To  further  these,  they  prostituted  the  opportunities 
afforded  by  their  spiritual  function,  and  by  the  traditional 
reverence  of  men,  which,  though  weakened,  was  still  powerful, 
for  their  episcopal  authority.  It  was  unavoidable  that  they 
and  their  office  with  them,  should  sink  in  public  esteem.  "  Dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages,"  says  Coleridge,  the  Papacy  was  another 
name  "  for  a  confederation  of  learned  men  in  the  west  of  Europe 
against  the  barbarism  and  ignorance  of  the  times.  The  Pope 
was  the  chief  of  this  confederacy;  and,  so  long  as  he  retained 
that  character,  his  power  was  just  and  irresistible.  It  was  the 
principal  means  of  preserving  for  us  and  for  all  posterity  all  that 
we  now  have  of  the  illumination  of  past  ages.  But  as  soon  as 
the  Pope  made  a  separation  between  his  character  as  premier 
clerk  in  Christendom  and  as  a  secular  prince  —  as  soon  as  he 
began  to  squabble  for  towns  and  castles  —  then  he  at  once  broke 
the  charm,  and  gave  birth  to  a  revolution."  "Everywhere, 
but  especially  throughout  the  North  of  Europe,  the  breach  of 
feeling  and  sympathy  went  on  widening;  so  that  all  Germany, 
England,  Scotland,  and  other  countries,  started,  like  giants 
out  of  their  sleep,  at  the  first  blast  of  Luther's  trumpet."  ^ 

'  Table  Talk  (July  24,  1830).  Almost  the  same  statement  as  to  the  moral 
fall  of  the  Papacy  is  made  by  a  fair-m^inded  Catholic  historian.  He  traces  its 
decline  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  through  the  period  of  the  Reforming 
Councils,  and  the  reign  of  Julius  II.  and  the  popes  of  the  house  of  Medici.  "Bis 
dahin  hatten  die  Papste  durch  ihr  Vermittleramt  iiber  den  Fiirsten  gestanden; 
jetzt  aber  stellten  sie  sich  denselben  gleich  und  erweckten,  durch  ihre  Lander- 
und  Kriegslust,  Neid  und  Hass  gegen  sich.  So  war  die  ganze  moralische  Kraft, 
wodurch  Rom  seit  vier  Jahrhunderten  die  Welt  beherrscht  hatte,  untergraben, 
und  es  bediirfte  nur  eines  kraftigen  Stosses,  um  sie  iiber  den  Haufen  zu  werfen.!! 
J.  I.  Ritter,  Kirchengeschichte,  ii.  143. 


CHAPTER  III 

SPECIAL    CAUSES    AND    OMENS    OF    AN    ECCLESIASTICAL    REVOLU- 
TION  PRIOR  TO  THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 

The  mediseval  type  of  religion,  in  contrast  with  primitive 
Christianity,  is  pervaded  by  a  certain  legahsm.  Everything 
is  prescribed,  reduced  to  rule,  subjected  to  authority.  Mediseval 
Catholicism  may  be  contemplated  under  the  three  departments 
of  dogma,  of  polity,  and  of  Christian  life,  under  which  modes  of 
worship  are  included/  Under  this  last  comprehensive  rubric, 
monasticism,  for  example,  which  springs  out  of  a  certain  con- 
ception of  the  Christian  life,  belongs.  The  dogmatic  system, 
as  elaborated  by  the  schoolmen  from  the  materials  furnished 
by  tradition  and  sanctioned  by  the  Church,  constituted  a  vast 
body  of  doctrine,  which  every  Christian  was  bound  to  accept 
in  all  its  particulars.  The  polity  of  the  Church  lodged  all  gov- 
ernment in  the  hands  of  a  superior  class,  the  priesthood,  who 
were  the  commissioned,  indispensable  almoners  of  divine  grace. 
The  worship  centered  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  a  constantly 
repeated  miracle  wrought  by  the  hands  of  the  priest.  In  the 
idea  of  the  Christian  life,  the  visible  act  was  made  to  count  for 
so  much,  ceremonies  were  so  multiplied  and  so  highly  valued, 
that  a  character  of  externality  was  stamped  upon  the  method 
of  salvation.  Salvation,  instead  of  being  a  purely  gratuitous 
act,  flowing  from  the  mercy  of  God,  was  connected  with  human 
merit.  The  quantitative,  as  opposed  to  the  qualitative  standard 
of  excellence,  the  disposition  to  lay  stress  on  performances  and 
abstinences,  instead  of  the  spirit  or  principle  at  the  foundation 
of  the  whole  life,  lay  at  the  root  of  celibacy  and  the  monastic 
institutions.  The  masses,  pilgrimages,  fastings,  flagellations, 
prayers  to  saints,  homage  to  their  relics  and  images,  and  similar 
features  so  prominent  in  mediseval  piety,  illustrate  its  essential 

'  UUmann,  Reformatoren  vor  der  Reformation,  i.  p.  13  seq. 
43 


44  THE   REFORMATION 

character.  Christianity  was  converted  into  an  external  ordi- 
nance, into  a  round  of  observances/ 

The  reaction  which  manifested  itself  from  time  to  time 
within  the  Church,  anterior  to  the  Reformation,  might  have  a 
special  relation  to  either  of  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
mediaeval  system,  or  it  might  be  directed  against  them  all 
together.  It  might  appear  in  the  form  of  dissent  from  the  pre- 
vailing dogmas,  especially  from  the  doctrine  of  human  merit 
in  salvation ;  it  might  be  leveled  against  the  priesthood  as  usurp- 
ing a  function  not  given  them  in  the  Gospel,  and  as  departing 
in  various  ways  from  the  primitive  idea  of  the  Christian  ministry, 
it  might  take  the  form  of  an  explicit  or  indirect  resistance  to 
the  exaggerated  esteem  of  rites  and  ceremonies  and  austerities. 
In  either  of  these  directions  the  spiritual  element  of  Christianity, 
which  had  become  overlaid  and  cramped  by  traditions,  might 
appear  as  an  antagonistic  or  silently  renovating  force.  A 
general  progress  of  intelligence,  especially  if  it  should  lead 
to  the  study  of  early  Christianity,  would  tend  to  the  same 
result. 

The  forerunners  of  the  Reformation  have  been  properly 
divided  into  two  classes.^  The  first  of  them  consists  of  the 
men  who,  in  the  quiet  path  of  theological  research  and  teaching, 
or  by  practical  exertions  in  behalf  of  a  contemplative,  spiritual 
tone  of  piety,  were  undermining  the  traditional  system.  The 
second  embraces  the  names  of  men  who  are  better  known,  for 
the  reason  that  they  attempted  to  carry  out  their  ideas  prac- 
tically in  the  way  of  effecting  ecclesiastical  changes.  The  first 
class  are  more  obscure,  but  were  not  less  influential  in  preparing 
the  ground  for  the  Reformation.  Protestantism  was  a  return  to 
the  Scriptures  as  the  authentic  source  of  Christian  knowledge 
and  to  the  principle  that  salvation,  that  that  inward  peace,  is 
not  from  the  Church  or  from  human  works  ethical  or  ceremonial, 
but  through  Christ  alone,  received  by  the  soul  in  an  act  of 
trust.  Whoever,  whether  in  the  chair  of  theology,  in  the  pulpit, 
through  the  devotional  treatise,  or  by  fostering  the  study  of 
languages  and  of  history,  or  in  perilous  combat  with  ecclesi- 
astical abuses,  attracted  the  minds  of  men  to  the  Scriptures 

'  This  fact  is  well  represented  by  Ullmann,  Reformatoren  vor  der  Reformation, 
i.  p.  xiii.  seq.,  p.  8  seq. 
*  Ullmann,   i.  p.   15  seq. 


ANTI-SACERDOTAL   SECTS  45 

and  to  a  more  spiritual  conception  of  religion,  was,  in  a  greater 
or  less  measure,  a  reformer  before  the  Reformation. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  reviewed  the  rise  of  the 
hierarchical  order,  and  have  noticed  one  of  the  main  causes,  the 
tendency  to  centralization,  the  spirit  of  nationalism,  which  had 
weakened  the  authority  of  the  clergy,  and  especially,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  had  materially  reduced  the 
power  of  the  Papacy. 

We  have  now  to  direct  attention  to  various  special  causes 
and  omens,  earlier  and  later,  of  an  approaching  revolution, 
which  would  affect  not  only  the  polity  but  the  entire  religious 
system  of  the  mediaeval  Church. 

I.  Among  these  phenomena  is  to  be  mentioned  the  rise  of 
anti-sacerdotal  sects  which  sprang  up  as  early  as  the  eleventh 
century,  but  flourished  chiefly  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth. 
These  indicated  a  widespread  dissatisfaction  with  the  worldli- 
ness  of  the  clergy,  and  with  prelatical  government  in  the  Church. 
There  were  individuals,  like  Peter  of  Bruys,  himself  a  priest,  and 
Henry  the  Deacon,  a  monk  of  Clugny,  who,  in  the  earlier  part 
of  the  twelfth  century,  made  a  great  disturbance  in  Southern 
France  by  vehement  invectives  against  the  immoralities  of 
the  priesthood  and  their  usurped  dominion.  The  simultaneous 
appearance  of  persons  of  this  character,  whose  impassioned  ha- 
rangues won  for  them  numerous  adherents,  shows  that  the  popu- 
lar reverence  for  the  clergy  was  shaken.  Conspicuous  among 
the  sectaries  of  this  period  are  the  Catharists,  who  were  found  in 
several  countries,  but  were  most  numerous  in  the  cities  of  North 
Italy  and  of  the  south  of  France.  The  dualism  of  the  ancient 
Manicheans  and  of  the  later  Paulicians  —  the  theory  that  the 
empire  of  the  world  is  divided  between  two  antagonistic  prin- 
ciples —  together  with  the  asceticism  that  grows  out  of  it,  re- 
appears in  a  group  of  sects,  which  wear  different  names  in  the 
various  regions  where  they  are  found. ^    They  are  characterized 

'  Upon  the  origin  and  mutual  relation  of  these  sects,  their  tenets,  and  their 
relation  to  the  earlier  dualistic  heresies,  see  Neander,  Church  History,  iv.  552 
seq. ;  Gieseler,  Kirchengeschichte,  iii.  iii.  7,  §  87 ;  Milman,  History  of  Latin 
Christianity,  v.  156  seq. ;  Baur,  Kirchengeschichte,  iii.  489  seq. ;  Schmidt,  Hist, 
et  Doctrine  de  la  Secte  des  Cathares  (Paris,  1849),  and  article  "Katharer"  in  Herzog's 
Real-Encyclopiidie ;  Hahn,  Geschichte  d.  Ketzer  im  Mittelalter,  i. ;  Maitland,  Facts 
and  Documents  illustrative  of  the  History,  etc.,  of  the  Albigenses  and  the  Waldenses 
(1832);  also.  Eight  E.ssays  (Lond.  1852).  DoUinger,  Beitrdge  zur  Sektengeschichte 
des  Mittelalters  (Munich,  1890). 


46  THE    REFORMATION 

in  common  by  a  renunciation  of  the  authority  of  the  priesthood. 
In  Southern  France,  where  they  acquired  the  name  of  Albigen- 
ses,  they  were  well  organized,  and  were  protected  by  powerful 
laymen.  The  poems  of  the  troubadours  show  to  what  extent 
the  clergy  had  fallen  into  disrepute  in  this  wealthy  and  flourish- 
ing district.^  In  the  extensive,  opulent,  and  most  civilized 
portion  of  France,  which  formed  the  dominion  of  the  Count  of 
Toulouse,  the  old  religion  was  virtually  supplanted  by  the  new 
sect.  The  Albigensian  preachers,  who  mingled  with  their  het- 
erodox tenets  a  sincere  zeal  for  purity  of  life,  were  heard  with 
favor  by  all  classes.  The  extirpation  of  this  numerous  and 
formidable  sect  was  accomplished  only  through  a  bloody  cru- 
sade, that  was  set  on  foot  under  the  auspices  of  Innocent  III., 
and  was  followed  by  the  efforts  of  the  Inquisition,  which  here 
had  its  beginning.^  The  Albigenses,  in  their  opposition  to  the 
authority  of  ecclesiastical  tradition  and  of  the  hierarchy,  and 
in  their  rejection  of  pilgrimages  and  of  certain  practices,  like 
the  worship  of  saints  and  images,  anticipated  the  Protestant 
doctrine;  although  in  other  respects  their  creed  is  even  more 
at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  Protestantism  than  is  that  of  their 
opponents.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  at  the  moment 
when  the  Papacy  appeared  to  be  at  the  zenith  of  its  power,  a 
rebellion  broke  out,  which  could  only  be  put  down  by  a  great 
exertion  of  military  force,  and  by  brutalities  which  have  left 
an  indelible  stain  upon  those  who  instigated  them.^ 

The  Waldenses,  a  party  not  tainted  with  Manichean  doctrine, 
and  distinct  from  the  Catharists,  arose  in  1170,  under  the  lead 
of  Peter  Waldo,  of  Lyons.  Finding  themselves  forbidden  to 
preach  in  a  simple  manner,  after  the  example  of  the  Apostles, 
the  "Poor  Men  of  Lyons,"  as  they  were  styled,  made  a  stand 
against  the  exclusive  right  of  the  clergy  to  teach  the  Gospel. 
Although  the  Waldenses  are  not  of  so  high  antiquity  as  was 
often  supposed,  since  they  do  not  reach  further  back  than  Waldo, 

'  Milman,  Latin  Christianity,  v.  164.     See,  also,  p.  137. 

2  "It  was  a  war,"  says  Guizot,  "between  feudal  France  and  municipal 
France."     History  of  Civilization,  lect.  x. 

^  The  distinguished  Catholic  theologian,  Hefele,  in  the  Kirchen-Lexikon,  art. 
"Albigenses,"  endeavors  to  lessen  the  responsibility  of  the  Pope  and  the  ec- 
clesiastical authorities  for  the  Albigensian  massacres.  But  this  is  possible  only 
to  a  very  limited  extent.  It  was  not  until  frightful  atrocities  had  been  com- 
mitted, that  an  attempt  was  made  to  curb  the  ferocity  which  had  been  excited 
by  the  most  urgent  appeals. 


ANTI-SACERDOTAL   SECTS  47 

and  although  they  were  far  less  enlightened  as  to  doctrine  than 
they  became  after  they  had  been  brought  in  contact  with  Prot- 
estantism, yet  their  attachment  to  the  Scriptures,  and  their 
opposition  to  clerical  usurpation  and  profligacy,  entitle  them 
to  a  place  among  the  precursors  of  the  Reformation/  Wher- 
ever they  went,  they  kindled  among  the  people  the  desire  to 
read  the  Bible.  The  principal  theater  of  their  labors  was  Milan, 
and  other  places  in  the  north  of  Italy  and  the  south  of  France, 
where  the  hierarchy  had  a  weaker  hold  on  the  people,  and  where 
many  who  were  disgusted  with  the  priesthood  were  likewise 
repelled  by  the  obnoxious  theology  of  the  Catharists, 

The  departure  of  the  Franciscans  from  the  rule  of  poverty 
led  the  stricter  party  in  that  order  to  break  off;  and  all  efforts 
to  heal  the  schism  proved  ineffectual.  The  Spirituals,  as  the 
stricter  sect  were  called,  in  their  zeal  against  ecclesiastical  cor- 
ruption did  not  spare  the  Roman  Church;  and  they,  especially 
the  lay  brethren  among  them,  the  Fratricelli,  were  delivered 
over  to  the  Inquisition. 

At  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  there  were  formed  in  the 
Netherlands  societies  of  praying  women,  calling  themselves 
Beguines,  who  led  a  life  of  devotion  without  monastic  vows. 
Similar  societies  of  men,  who  were  called  Beghards,  were  after- 
wards formed.  Many  of  both  classes,  for  the  sake  of  protection, 
connected  themselves  with  the  Tertiaries  of  the  monastic  orders. 
Many,  following  the  rule  of  poverty,  became  mendicants  along 
the  Rhine  and  perhaps,  through  the  influence  of  the  sect  of 
the  Free  Spirit  —  a  Pantheistic  sect  —  adopted  heretical  opin- 
ions; so  that  the  names  Beguine  and  Beghard,  outside  of  the 
Netherlands,  became  synonymous  with  heretic.  A  swarm 
of  enthusiasts  and  fanatics,  known  by  these  appellations, 
cherished  a  sincere  hostility  to  the  corrupt  administration  of 
the  Church. 

The  existence  and  the  number  of  this  species  of  sectaries, 
whom  the  Inquisition  could  not  extirpate,  and  who,  it  should 

'  The  principal  works  which  have  served  to  settle  disputed  points  respecting 
the  Waldenses  are  Dieckhoff,  Die  Waldenser  im  Mittelnlter  (1851);  Herzog,  Die 
romanischen  Waldenser  (1853).  Herzog  has  brought  forward  new  information 
in  his  article  on  the  Waldenses  in  his  Real-Encyclopadie.  See,  also,  Comba, 
History  of  the  Waldenses  of  Italy  (1889).  The  discovery  of  the  manuscript  of 
the  Nobla  Leyczon  rendered  it  highly  probable  that  this  poem  was  composed 
in  the  fifteenth  century.  That  tlie  Waldenses  had  no  existence  prior  to  Waldo, 
is  conceded  at  present  by  competent  scholars. 


48  THE   REFORMATION 

be  observed,  were  mostly  plain  and  unlearned  people,  prove 
that  a  profound  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing  order  of  things, 
and  a  deep  craving,  mingled  though  it  was  with  ignorance  and 
superstition,  for  the  restoration  of  a  more  simple  and  apostolic 
type  of  Christianity,  had  penetrated  the  lower  orders  of  society. 
Formerly  they  who  were  offended  by  the  wealth  and  worldly 
temper  of  the  clergy,  had  found  relief  by  retreating  to  the  aus- 
terities of  monastic  life  within  the  Church.  But  the  monastic 
societies,  each  in  its  turn,  as  they  grew  older,  fell  into  the  luxu- 
rious ways  from  which  their  founders  had  been  anxious  to  escape. 
Now,  as  we  approach  the  epoch  of  the  Reformation,  we  observe 
the  tendency  of  this  sort  of  disaffection  to  embody  itself  in  sects 
which  assume  a  questionable  or  openly  inimical  attitude  towards 
the  Church.  Yet  it  is  well  that  the  ecclesiastical  revolution  was 
not  left  for  them  to  accomplish,  but  was  reserved  for  enlightened 
and  sober-minded  men,  who  would  know  how  to  build  up  as 
well  as  to  destroy. 

II.  The  Conservative  Reformers,  the  champions  of  the  lib- 
eral, episcopal,  or  Gallican,  as  contrasted  with  the  papal,  con- 
ception of  the  hierarchy;  the  leaders  in  the  reforming  councils, 
both  by  what  these  eminent  men  achieved  and  by  what  they 
failed  to  achieve,  prepared  the  way  for  the  great  change  from 
which  they  themselves  would  have  recoiled  in  dismay.  In  carry- 
ing forward  their  battle  they  were  led  to  expose  with  unsparing 
severity  the  errors  and  crimes,  as  well  as  the  enormous  usurpa- 
tions of  authority,  with  which  the  popes  were  chargeable.  This 
could  not  but  essentially  lower  the  respect  of  men  for  the  papal 
office  itself.  At  the  same  time  the  discomfiture  of  these  reform- 
ers, as  far  as  their  principal  attempt  is  concerned,  to  reform  the 
Church  "in  head  and  members,"  a  discomfiture  effected  by  the 
persistency  and  dexterity  of  the  popes  and  their  active  adherents, 
could  not  fail  to  leave  the  impression  on  many  minds  that  a 
more  stringent  remedy  would  have  to  be  sought  for  the  unbear- 
able grievances  under  which  the  Church  labored.  It  must  not 
be  forgotten,  however,  that  Gerson,  D'Ailly,  and  their  compeers, 
were  as  firmly  wedded  to  the  doctrine  of  a  priesthood  in  the 
Church,  and  to  the  traditional  dogmatic  system,  as  were  their 
opponents.  At  Constance,  the  Paris  theologians  almost  out- 
stripped their  papal  antagonists  in  the  violent  treatment  of 
Huss  during  the  sessions  of  the  Council,  and  in  the  alacrity  with 


RADICAL   REFORMERS  49 

which  they  condemned  him  and  Jerome  of  Prague  to  the  stake. 
It  was  a  reformation  of  morals,  not  of  doctrine,  at  which  they 
aimed;  the  distribution,  but  not  the  destruction,  of  priestly 
authority. 

III.  But  there  were  individuals  before,  and  long  before  the 
time  of  Luther,  who  are  appropriately  called  radical  reformers; 
men  who,  in  essential  points,  anticipated  the  Protestant  move- 
ment. There  were  conspicuous  efforts  which,  if  they  proved  to 
a  considerable  extent  abortive  at  the  moment,  left  seed  to  riper. 
afterwards,  and  were  the  harbinger  of  more  effectual  measures 
Of  all  this  class  of  reformers  before  the  Reformation,  John  Wick- 
liffe  is  the  most  remarkable.^  Living  in  the  midst  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Luther ; 
not  an  obscure  or  illiterate  man,  but  a  trained  theologian,  a 
Professor  at  Oxford;  not  hiding  his  opinions,  but  proclaiming 
them  with  boldness ;  he,  nevertheless,  took  the  position  not  only 
of  a  Protestant,  but,  in  many  important  particulars,  of  a  Puri- 
tan. In  his  principal  work  he  affirms  that  no  writing,  not  even 
a  papal  decree,  has  any  validity  further  than  it  is  founded  on 
the  Holy  Scriptures;  he  denies  transubstantiation,  and  attrib- 
utes the  origin  of  this  dogma  to  the  substitution  of  a  belief  in 
papal  declarations  for  belief  in  the  Bible ;  he  asserts  that  in  the 
primitive  Church  there  were  but  two  sorts  of  clergy;  doubts 
the  Scriptural  warrant  for  the  rites  of  confirmation  and  extreme 
unction;  would  have  all  interference  with  civil  affairs  and  tem- 
poral authority  interdicted  to  the  clergy;  speaks  against  the 
necessity  of  auricular  confession;  avers  that  the  exercise  of  the 
power  to  bind  and  loose  is  of  no  effect,  save  when  it  is  conformed 
to  the  judgment  of  Christ;  is  opposed  to  the  multiplied  ranks  of 
the  clergy  —  popes,  cardinals,  patriarchs,  monks,  canons,  and 
the  rest;  repudiates  the  doctrine  of  indulgences  and  super- 
erogatory merits,  the  doctrine  of  the  excellence  of  poverty,  as 
that  was  held  and  as  it  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  mendicant 
orders;  and  he  sets  himself  against  artificial  church  music, 
pictures  in  worship,  consecration  with  the  use  of  oil  and  salt, 

'  Life  and  Sufferings  of  John  Wicklif,  by  J.  Lewis  (Oxford,  1820)  ;  Life  of 
Wicklif,  by  Charles  Webb  Le  Bas  (1846);  John  de  Wycliffe,  a  Monograph,  by 
Robert  Vaughan,  D.D.  (London,  1853) ;  Weber,  Geschichte  der  akatholischen 
Kirchen  u.  Secten  von  Gross- Brittanien,  i.  62  seq. ;  Hardwick,  History  of  the 
Christian  Church:  Middle  Age,  p.  402  seq.  G.  'LecYAer ,  J ohann  von  Wiclif  (1873)  ; 
W^.  W.  Capes,  The  English  Church  in  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Centuries,  p.  109 
seq.  (1900). 


50  THE   REFORMATION 

canonization,  pilgrimages,  church  asylums  for  criminals,  celibacy 
of  the  clergy/  Almost  every  distinguishing  feature  of  the 
mediaeval  and  papal  church,  as  contrasted  with  the  Protestant,  is 
directly  disowned  and  combated  by  Wickliffe.  How  was  it 
possible  that  he  could  do  this  so  long,  in  that  age,  with  compara- 
tive impunity,  and  die  at  last  in  his  bed,  when  so  many  whom 
he  immeasurably  outstripped  in  his  reformatory  ideas  paid  for 
their  dissent  with  their  lives?  The  reason  is  found  partly  in 
the  fact  that  he  identified  himself  with  the  University  of  Oxford, 
and  with  the  secular  or  parish  clergy  in  their  struggle  against 
the  aspiring  mendicant  orders,  and  still  more  in  the  fact  that 
he  stood  forth  in  the  character  of  a  champion  of  civil  and  kingly 
authority,  against  ecclesiastical  encroachments.  He  was  pro- 
tected by  Edward  III.,  whose  cause  against  papal  tyranny  he 
had  supported;  and  after  Edward's  death,  by  powerful  nobles. 
He  was  strong  enough  to  withstand  the  opposition  to  his  work 
of  translating  the  Bible,  and  publicly  to  defend  the  right  of  the 
people  to  have  the  Scriptures  in  their  own  tongue.  Not  until 
the  reign  of  Henry  V.,  when  the  relation  of  the  kings  to  the  clergy 
was  changed,  was  the  persecution  of  the  Wickliffites,  or  Lol- 
lards, as  they  were  called,  vigorously  undertaken.  They  were 
not  exterminated;  but  the  principles  of  Wickliffe  continued  to 
have  adherents  in  the  poor  and  obscure  classes  in  England, 
down  to  the  outbreaking  of  the  Protestant  movement.  It  is  re- 
markable that  Wickliffe  predicted  that  among  the  monks  them- 
selves there  would  arise  persons  who  would  abandon  their  false 
interpretations  of  Christianity,  and,  returning  to  the  original  reli- 
gion of  Christ,  would  build  up  the  Church  in  the  spirit  of  Paul.^ 
In  the  same  rank  with  Wickliffe  stands  the  name  of  John 
Huss.^    Before  him  in  Bohemia  there  had  appeared  Mihtz  and 

*  Large  extracts  from  the  Trialogus  are  in  Gieseler,  iii.  iv.  8.  §  125,  n.  1.  An 
analysis  of  it  is  given  in  Turner,  History  of  England,  v. 

2  The  following  passage  is  from  the  Trialogus :  "Suppono  autem  quod  aliqui 
fratres,  quos  Deus  docere  dignatur,  ad  religionem  primsevam  Christi  devotius 
convertentur,  et  relicta  sua  perfidia,  sive  obtenta  sive  petita  Antichrist!  licentia, 
redibunt  libera  ad  religionem  Christi  primsevam,  et  tunc  sedificabunt  ecclesiam 
sicut  Paulus."     See  Neander,  v.  172. 

'  Historia  et  Monumenta  Jo.  Hus  et  Hieron.  Pragensis  (1715) ;  Palacky, 
Documenta  Magistri  J.  Hus,  and  the  Geschichte  Bohmens  by  the  same  author; 
Neander,  Church  History,  v.  235  seq. ;  Gillett,  Life  and  Times  of  John  Huss  (1871)  ; 
the  works  of  Van  der  Hardt  and  Lenfant  upon  the  Council  of  Constance;  L. 
Krummel,  Geschichte  d.  Bohmisch.  Reformat,  im  XV.  Jahrh.  (1866)  ;  Wessenberg, 
Die  grossen  Kirchenversamnilungen  des  XV.  u.  XVI.  Jahrh.  (vol.  ii.  1840);  Czer- 
wenka,  Gsch.  der  Evang.  Kirche  in  B'dhmen,  2  vols.  Leipzig,  1869-70. 


WICKLIFFE   AND   HUSS  51 

Conrad  of  Waldhausen,  preachers  animated  with  the  fiery  zeal 
of  prophets,  and  Ufting  up  their  voices,  in  the  face  of  persecu- 
tion, against  the  corruption  of  religion/  Still  more  was  Huss 
indebted  to  Matthias  of  Janow,  whose  ideas  respecting  the 
Church  and  the  relations  of  clergy  to  laity  involved  the  germs 
of  changes  more  radical  than  he  himself  perceived.  Huss  was 
strongly  influenced,  hkewise,  by  the  writings  of  Wickliffe,  and 
was  active  in  disseminating  them.  The  Bohemian  reformer 
had  less  theological  acumen  than  the  English,  with  whom  he 
agreed  in  his  advocacy  of  philosophical  realism  and  predestina- 
tion; nor  did  he  go  so  far  on  the  road  of  doctrinal  innovation; 
since  Huss,  to  the  last,  was  a  believer  in  transubstantiation. 
But  in  his  conception  of  the  functions  and  duties  of  the  clergy, 
in  his  zeal  for  practical  holiness,  and  in  his  exaltation  of  the 
Scriptures  above  the  dogmas  and  ordinances  of  the  Church,  in 
moral  excellence  and  heroism  of  character,  Huss  was  outdone 
by  none  of  the  reformers  before  or  since.  Luther,  when  he  was 
a  monk,  accidentally  fell  upon  a  volume  of  the  sermons  of  Huss, 
in  the  convent  library  of  Erfurt,  and  was  struck  with  wonder 
that  the  author  of  such  sentiments  as  they  contained  should 
have  been  put  to  death  for  heresy.  In  the  attitude  which  Huss 
assumed  before  the  Council  of  Constance,  there  was  involved 
the  assertion  of  one  of  the  distinctive  principles  of  Protestant- 
ism —  that  of  the  right  of  private  judgment.  He  was  com- 
manded to  retract  his  avowals  of  opinion,  and  this  he  refused 
to  do  until  he  could  be  convinced  by  argument  and  by  citations 
from  Scripture  that  his  opinions  were  erroneous.  That  is,  he 
went  behind  the  authority  of  the  Council.  This  itself,  in  their 
eyes,  amounted  to  flagrant  heresy,  and  was  sufficient  to  con- 
demn him.  It  was  a  repudiation,  on  his  side,  of  the  principle 
of  Church  authority,  which  was  a  vital  part  of  the  ecclesiastical 
system.  The  cruel  execution  of  Huss  (1415)  and  of  Jerome, 
especially  as  the  former  had  rested  on  the  Emperor's  safe-con- 
duct, excited  a  storm  of  wrath  among  their  countrymen  and 
adherents.^    Bohemia  was  long  the  theater  of  violent  agitation 

*  Neander,  v.  173  seq. ;  Jordan,  Vorldufer  des  Hussitenthums  in  Bohmen 
(Leipzig,  1846). 

2  That  there  was  no  violation  of  the  safe-conduct  is  assumed  by  Palacky, 
Gesch.  Bohmens,  and  is  maintained  by  Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  vii.  For  a 
review  of  Hefele  and  a  discussion  of  this  point,  see  New  Englander,  April,  1870. 
One  of  the  principal  offenses  of  Huss,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Council  and  of  many 


52  THE   REFORMATION 

and  of  civil  war.  Repeated  crusades  were  undertaken  against 
the  Hussites,  but  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  assailants.  More 
pacific  measures,  coupled  with  internal  conflicts  in  their  own 
body,  finally  reduced  their  strength  and  left  them  a  prey  to 
their  persecutors;  but  the  Bohemian  brethren,  an  offshoot 
from  the  more  radical  of  the  Hussite  parties,  continued  to 
exist  in  separation  from  the  Church;  and  in  their  confes- 
sions, drawn  up  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
they  reject  transubstantiation,  purgatory,  and  the  worship  of 
saints. 

Other  names  exist,  less  renowned  than  those  of  Wickliffe 
and  Huss,  but  equally  deserving  to  be  inscribed  among  the 
heralds  of  the  Reformation.  Among  them  is  John  Wessel,  who 
was  connected  at  different  times  with  the  Universities  of  Co- 
logne, Louvain,  Paris,  and  Heidelberg,  as  a  teacher  of  theology, 
and  died  in  1489.^  He  set  forth  in  explicit  and  emphatic  lan- 
guage the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone.  Against  the 
alleged  infallibility  of  bishops  and  pontiffs,  he  avers  that  many 
of  the  greatest  popes  have  fallen  into  pestilent  errors  both  of 
doctrine  and  practice;  giving  as  examples,  Benedict  XHI., 
Boniface  IX.,  John  XXIII.,  Pius  II.,  and  Sixtus  IV.  It  has 
been  said  that  there  is  scarcely  a  fundamental  tenet  of  the 
reformers  which  Wessel  did  not  avow.  Luther,  in  his  preface 
to  a  collection  of  several  of  Wessel's  treatises,  declares  him  to 
have  been  a  man  of  admirable  genius,  a  rare  and  great  soul, 
and  so  far  in  accord  with  him  as  to  doctrine,  that  if  he  had 
read  sooner  the  words  of  Wessel,  it  might  have  been  plausibly 
said  by  his  enemies  that  he  had  borrowed  everything  from 
them. 

A  man  whose  doctrinal  position  was  far  less  diverse  from 

writers  since,  was  the  doctrine,  imputed  to  him,  that  prelates  and  magistrates 
separated  from  Christ  by  mortal  sin,  really  cease  to  be  invested  with  their  offices. 
This  was  thought  to  strike  at  the  foundations  of  all  ci\nl  and  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity. But  Huss  explained  to  the  Council  that,  in  his  view,  such  persons  are  still 
to  be  recognized  quoad  officium,  though  not  quoad  meritum.  They  are  destitute 
of  the  ethical  character  that  forms  the  moral  essence  of  the  office,  though  still 
exercising  its  functions.  See,  on  this  important  question,  Palacky,  iii.  i.  353 ; 
Krummel,  p.  519 ;  Wessenburg,  ii.  171 ;  also,  Hefele,  Conciliengeschichte,  vii. 
i.  163.  To  Wickliffe  were  imputed  similar  opinions.  Only  those  in  a  state  of 
grace,  he  held,  can  possess  property;  others  may  occupy  but  not  have. —  Gieseler, 
III.  iv.  c.  viii.  §  125,  n.  18;     Schrockh,  Kirchengeschichte,  xxxiv.  536. 

*  The  career  of  Wessel  and  his  principles  are  fully  described  by  Ullmann, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  287-642.  For  the  reformatory  opinions  of  John  of  Goch  and  John 
of  Wessel,  see  Ullmann,  and  Gieseler,  iii.  v.  5,  §  153. 


RADICAL   REFORMERS  53 

the  current  system,  but  who  must  be  ranked  among  the  noted 
precursors  of  the  Reformation,  is  Savonarola/  From  1489  to 
his  death  in  1498,  he  lived  at  Florence,  and  for  a  while,  by  the 
force  of  his  intellectual  and  moral  character,  and  by  his  com- 
manding eloquence,  exerted  a  ruling  influence  in  the  affairs 
of  the  city.  He  was  largely  instrumental  in  the  expulsion 
of  the  house  of  Medici  from  Florence.  Against  their  tyranny 
and  the  immoralities  which  they  fostered  he  directed  from  the 
pulpit  his  sharp  invectives.  On  the  invasion  of  the  French 
under  Charles  VIII.,  which  Savonarola  had  predicted,  he  was 
able,  through  the  personal  respect,  amounting  to  awe,  with 
which  he  inspired  the  king,  to  render  important  services  to 
Florence.  His  position  there  resembled  that  which  Calvin 
long  maintained  at  Geneva.  A  Dominican,  stimulated  to 
stricter  asceticism  by  the  demoralized  condition  of  the  Church 
and  of  society,  he  poured  out  his  rebukes  without  stint,  until 
the  political  and  religious  elements  that  were  combined  against 
him,  effected  his  destruction.^  He  had  pronounced  the  excom- 
munication, which  was  issued  against  him  by  the  flagitious 
Alexander  VI.,  void,  had  declared  that  it  was  from  the  devil, 
and  he  had  continued  to  preach  against  the  papal  prohibition. 
In  prison  he  composed  a  tract  upon  the  fifty-first  psalm,  in 
which  he  comes  so  near  the  Protestant  views  of  justification 
that  Luther  published  it  with  a  laudatory  preface.     Savonarola 

1  The  two  principal  German  biographies  of  Savonarola  are  by  Rudelbach 
(Hamburg,  1835)  and  Meier  (Berlin,  1836),  the  former  of  which  treats  prin- 
cipally of  Savonarola's  doctrine,  the  latter  of  the  events  of  his  career.  From 
the  French  we  have  Jerome  Savonarola,  sa  Vie,  ses  Predications,  ses  Ecrits,  par 
F.  T.  Perrens  (Paris,  1853).  An  extremely  valuable  life  of  Savonarola  is  that 
by  Villari —  La  Storia  de  Girolamo  Savonarola  e  de'  suoi  tempi,  narrata  da  Pas- 
quale  Villari  con  I'aiuto  di  nuovi  documenti  (Firenze,  1859).  Villari,  in  his  Pref- 
azione,  criticises  the  previous  biographers,  including  the  English  work  by  Madden. 
He  considers  that  Rudelbach  and  others  have  exaggerated  the  Protestant  ten- 
dencies of  the  great  Dominican;  that  he  adhered  substantially  to  the  dogmatic 
system  of  the  Church,  though  hostile  to  papal  absolutism.  Villari  vindicates  him 
against  the  common  imputation  of  a  demagogical  temper  and  exhibits  him  as  a 
thorough  patriot.  He  also  shows  that  Savonarola's  vacillation  under  torture  was 
only  in  reference  to  the  source  of  his  prophecies,  whether  natural  or  supernatural ; 
a  point  on  which  he  had  cherished  no  uniform  conviction.  An  instructive  and 
brilliant  article  by  Milman  (written  prior  to  the  publication  of  Villari's  Life) 
appeared  in  the  Quarterly  Review  (,1859).  See,  also,  E.  Armstrong,  in  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  i.  144  seq.  Romola,  by  George  Eliot  (Mrs.  Lewes),  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  novels  of  the  recent  times,  presents  a  striking  picture  of  Savona- 
rola and  of  Florentine  life  in  his  time. 

^  For  an  example  of  his  denunciation  of  the  venality  and  other  sins  of  the 
clergy,  see  Villari,  ii.  80:  "Vendono  i  benefizi,  vendono  i  sacramenti,  vendono  le 
messe  del  matrimonii,  vendono  ogni  cosa,"   etc. 


64  THE   REFORMATION 

did  not  despair  of  the  cause  for  which  he  laid  down  his  Hfe,  but 
predicted  a  coming  Reformation. 

IV.  We  turn  now  to  another  class  of  men  who  powerfully, 
though  indirectly,  paved  the  way  for  the  Protestant  Revolu- 
tion —  the  Mystics/ 

Mysticism  had  developed  itself  all  through  the  scholastic 
period,  in  individuals  of  profound  reUgious  feeling,  to  whom  the 
exclusively  dialectical  tendency  was  repugnant.  Such  men  were 
St.  Bernard,  Bonaventura,  and  the  school  of  St.  Victor.  An- 
selm  himself,  the  father  of  the  schoolmen,  mingled  with  his 
logical  habit  a  mystical  vein,  and  this  combination  was  in  fact 
characteristic  of  the  best  of  the  scholastic  theologians.  But 
with  the  decline  of  scholasticism,  partly  as  a  cause  and  partly 
as  an  effect,  mysticism  assumed  a  more  distinct  shape.  The 
characteristic  of  the  Mystics  is  the  life  of  feeling ;  the  preference 
of  intuition  to  logic,  the  quest  for  knowledge  through  light  im- 
parted to  feeling  rather  than  by  processes  of  the  intellect;  the 
indwelling  of  God  in  the  soul,  elevated  to  a  holy  calm  by  the 
consciousness  of  His  presence;  absolute  self-renunciation  and 
the  absorption  of  the  human  will  into  the  divine;  the  ecstatic 
mood.  The  theory  of  the  Mystic  may  easily  slide  into  panthe- 
ism, where  the  union  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  divine  is 
resolved  into  the  identification  of  the  two.^  This  tendency  is 
perceptible  in  one  class  of  the  ante-Protestant  Mystics,  of  which 
Master  Eckart  is  a  prominent  representative.  He  was  Provin- 
cial of  the  Dominicans  for  Saxony ;  the  scene  of  his  labors  was  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Rhine,  and  he  died  about  1329.  Affili- 
ated societies  calling  themselves  the  Friends  of  God,  although 
they  formed  no  sect,  grew  up  in  the  south  and  west  of  Germany 
and  in  the  Netherlands.  They  made  religion  center  in  a  calm 
devoutness,  in  disinterested  love  to  God  and  in  labors  of  benevo- 
lence. It  was  in  Cologne,  Strasburg,  and  in  other  places  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Rhine,  that  the  preachers  of  this  class  chiefly 
flourished.     Of  them  the  most  eminent  is  John  Tauler  (1290- 


•  Upon  the  Mystics,  besides  Ullmann's  work,  Die  Rejormntoren  vor  der  Re- 
formation, and  Neander,  v.  380  seq.,  see  C.  Schmidt,  Etudes  sur  le  Mysticisms 
Allemand  au  XIV.  siccle  (1847);  Helfferich,  Die  christl.  Mystik  (1842);  Noack, 
Gesch.  d.  Mystik  (1853) ;    R.  A.  Vaughan,  Hours    with  the  Mystics  (1856). 

*  On  the  nature  of  mysticism,  see  Ritter,  Gesch.  d.  christl.  Philosophic,  iv.  626 
seq.  Ritter  explains  especially  the  ideas  of  Gerson.  See,  also,  Hase,  Hutterus 
Redivivua. 


THE   MYSTICS  55 

1361),  Doctor  sublimis  et  illuminatus,  as  he  was  styled,  a  pupil 
of  Eckart,  but  an  opposer  of  pantheism  and  a  preacher  of  evan- 
gelical fervor/  To  him  Luther  erroneously  ascribed  the  little 
book  which  emanated  from  some  member  of  this  mystical  school, 
called  "The  German  Theology,"  a  book  which  Luther  pubHshed 
anew  in  1516,  and  from  which  he  said  that,  next  to  the  Bible 
and  St.  Augustine,  he  had  learned  more  than  from  any  other 
book  of  what  God,  Christ,  man,  and  all  things  are.  The  Mystics 
were  eagerly  heard  by  thousands  who  yearned  for  a  more  vital 
kind  of  religion  than  the  Church  had  afforded  them.  The  "Imi- 
tation of  Christ,"  by  Thomas  a  Kempis,  a  work  which  has  prob- 
ably had  a  larger  circulation  than  any  other  except  the  Bible,  is 
a  fine  example  of  the  characteristic  spirit  of  the  mystical  school.^ 
The  reformatory  effect  of  the  Mystics  was  twofold :  they  weak- 
ened the  influence  of  the  scholastic  system  and  called  men  away 
from  a  dogmatic  religion  to  something  more  inward  and  spiritual ; 
and  their  labors,  likewise,  tended  to  break  up  the  excessive  es- 
teem of  outward  sacraments  and  ceremonies.  Standing  within 
the  Church  and  making  no  quarrel  with  it,  they  were  thus  pre- 
paring the  ground,  especially  in  Germany,  through  the  whole  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  for  the  Protestant  reform.  With  these 
pioneers  of  reform,  and  not  with  men  like  Huss  and  Wickliffe, 
the  religious  training  of  Luther  and  his  great  movement  have  a 
direct  historical  connection. 

In  speaking  of  the  causes  leading  to  the  Reformation,  it  is 
natural  to  associate  with  this  term  the  renouncing  of  papal 
authority  or  of  one  or  more  of  the  dogmas  in  the  creed  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  and  has 
been  already  discerned,  that  social  movements  characteristic  of 
the  Renaissance  period  had  sometimes  partakers  in  them,  often 
not  a  few,  who  did  not  waver  in  their  professed  fealty  to  the 
Roman  See.  Due  credit  must  be  given  to  individuals  or  asso- 
ciations of  this  class  for  everything  meritorious  in  aim  or 
influence.  Numerous  sincere  Mystics  were  trained  at  De- 
venter,  the  School  of  the  Brothers  of  Common  Life.     Among 

*  C.  Schmidt,  Johannes  Tauter  von  Strashurg  (1841)  ;  Life  of  Tauler,  with 
Twenty-five  of  his  Sermons,  translated  from  the  German  by  Susanna  Wink- 
worth,  to  which  are  added  a  preface  by  Rev.  C.  Kingsley,  and  an  introduction 
by  Rev.  R.  D.  Hitchcock,  D.D.  (New  York,  1858). 

*  Upon  the  authorship  of  this  work,  see  Gieseler,  ill.  v.  4.  §  146 ;  Ullmann, 
ii.  711  seq. ;    Schmidt  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyd. 


56  THE   REFORMATION 

those  taught  there,  if  Erasmus  was  the  foremost  man  of  genius, 
he  was  far  from  being  the  sole  man  of  note  who  had  been 
a  pupil  there.  It  was  an  earnest  preacher,  Gerard  Groot,  by 
whom  the  first  steps  were  taken  in  its  origin/  He  collected 
about  him  a  group  of  young  men  who  looked  forward  to  the 
attainment  of  the  spiritual  attainments  requisite  for  ecclesi- 
astic office.  Pious  laymen  were  permitted  to  join  them.  Like 
gatherings  in  the  Netherlands  and  North  Germany  made  it  a 
principal  aim  to  educate  the  people  and  to  promote  spiritual 
religion  among  devout  monks  and  clergy.  They  likewise  en- 
gaged in  copying  manuscripts  of  Scriptures  and  of  the  Fathers. 
They  were  concerned  in  promoting  the  study  of  antiquity  and, 
in  general,  to  increase  and  diffuse  religious  knowledge.  For 
Christian  sisters  as  well  as  for  males  houses  were  established. 
In  their  houses  and  schools  they  made  it  their  aim  to  cultivate 
a  true  piety  after  their  own  ideal.  The  Brethren  were  signally 
successful  in  their  disinterested,  spiritual  exertions. 

A  new  era  in  the  intellectual  life  of  Germany  was  attendant 
on  Gutenberg's  use  of  the  printing  press  and  movable  types 
(about  1450)  —  a  new  era,  in  fact,  in  all  Christendom.  Co- 
incident with  the  rise  of  this  new  period  is  the  career  of  Car- 
dinal Nicholas  Cues,  —  or  Cusanus,  whose  family  name  was 
Krebs,  —  more  honored  for  his  life  and  labors,  especially  by 
his  fellow-churchmen,  than  any  other  of  the  class  reformers 
adhering  to  the  Papal  See  of  whom  we  have  spoken.^  Cues,  a 
place  near  Treves,  was  his  birthplace.  Hence  the  name 
"Nicholas  Cusanus." 

He  died  in  1464.  After  leaving  the  Brothers'  House  at 
Deventer,  he  began  the  study  of  law  at  Padua,  which  he  gave 
up  to  take  up  the  study  of  theology.  He  became  an  Archdeacon, 
and  took  part  in  the  Council  of  Basel,  where  at  first,  both  orally 

'  The  history  and  characteristics  of  the  Brethren  of  Common  Life  are  fully 
set  forth  in  Hauck's  Realencyklopadie  fur  TheologiS  u.  Kirche,  vol.  iii.  p.  472  sqq. 
Briefer  sketches  are  given,  e.g.  in  Kurtz.  Kirchengest.,  vol.  i.  §  113,  9.  Miiller, 
Kirchengest.,  B  and  II,  2d  Heft.  Miiller,  History  of  the  Church,  Engl,  transl., 
Middle  Ages,  pp.   409  sqq.,   538. 

'  A  full  account  of  Cusanus  may  be  read  in  the  work  of  Johannes  Janssen, 
History  of  the  German  People  at  the  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  English  translation, 
2  vols.  (1897).  In  connection  with  Janssen 's  history  of  this  period,  the  critical 
review  of  it  by  Protestant  authors  are  entitled  to  attention,  especially  Kostlin. 
See,  also,  "Cambridge  Modern  History,"  vol.  i.  The  Renaissance,  p.  628  seq.  The 
account  of  Cusanus,  given  by  Pastor  in  his  History  of  the  Popes  in  the  Renais- 
sance, is  by  a  Roman  Catholic  author  of  merit. 


THE   MYSTICS  57 

and  in  writing,  he  advocated  the  view  that  the  Council  takes 
rank  above  the  Pope,  but  later  he  adopted  the  opposite  view. 
On  account  of  his  erudition,  his  cleverness,  and  rhetorical  gift, 
he  was  employed  by  Pope  Eugene  IV.  in  diplomatic  missions 
and  other  transactions,  and  in  the  successful  sale  of  Indulgences 
in  Germany  for  the  rebuilding  of  St.  Peter's  Church.  In  1448  he 
was  made  by  Eugene  a  Cardinal.  He  was  held  in  honor  for 
his  virtues  as  a  priest.  For  years  he  traveled  as  an  apostle 
and  an  industrious  reformer,  reviving  ecclesiastical  discipline, 
preaching  to  the  clergy  and  people,  promoting  education  among 
both  classes.  He  pursued  his  aims  by  holding  councils  and 
synods  in  great  number.  He  framed  rules  for  the  inspection  of 
monasteries.  It  is  undeniable  that  he  was  bent  on  promoting 
the  cause  of  practical  reform  of  the  whole  Church.  At  the 
same  time  he  made  no  attempt  to  modify  its  organic  structure. 
He  was  warmly  interested  in  humanistic  studies,  and  not  less  so  in 
mathematics  and  in  natural  science.  He  was  fond  of  classical 
studies.  In  Italy  he  was  untiring  in  the  study  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  He  had  been  appointed  by  the  Pope  Bishop  of 
Brixen  and  encountered  serious  difficulties  by  extending  reforms 
of  which  there  was  urgent  need.  His  principal  work  was  a  noted 
treatise  in  three  volumes,  "de  docta  ignorantia,"  in  which  lead- 
ing scholastic  metaphysical  theories  are  discussed.  He  wrote, 
prompted  by  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  his  "Dialogue  on  Peace 
or  Concord  of  Faith,"  in  behalf  of  religious  tolerance.  Chris- 
tianity, he  treated  as  the  most  perfect  of  all  religions,  but  held 
that  in  all  the  other  religions,  including  Mohammedanism,  like- 
wise essential  elements  of  eternal  truth  are  to  be  recognized. 
His  metaphysical  turn  and  his  relish  of  the  teaching  of  Master 
Eckart  imparted  to  some  of  his  writings  a  decided  Pantheistic 
tinge,  which  has  led  him  to  be  styled  a  speculative  Copernicus, 
and  was  not  without  its  impression  later  on  Giordano  Bruno,  who 
was  imprisoned  at  Rome  and  in  1600  was  burned  at  the  stake. 
V.  An  event  of  signal  importance,  as  an  indispensable  pre- 
requisite and  means  of  a  reformation  in  religion,  was  the  revival 
of  learning.  This  great  intellectual  change  emanated  from  Italy 
as  its  fountain.  During  the  Middle  Ages,  in  the  midst  of  pre- 
vailing darkness  and  disorder,  Italy  never  wholly  lost  the  traces 
of  ancient  civilization.  "The  night  which  descended  upon  her 
was  the  night  of  an  Arctic  summer.     The  dawn  began  to  reap- 


68  THE   REFORMATION 

pear  before  the  last  reflection  of  the  preceding  sunset  had  faded 
from  the  horizon."  ^  The  three  great  writers,  Dante,  Petrarch, 
and  Boccaccio,  introduced  a  new  era  of  culture.  To  the  long 
neglect  which  the  classic  authors  had  suffered,  Dante  refers, 
when  he  says  of  Virgil  that  he 

"Seemed  from  long-continued  silence  hoarse. "^ 

The  mind  of  Italy  more  and  more  turned  back  upon  its  ancient 
history  and  hterature.  The  study  of  the  Roman  classics  be- 
came a  passion.  No  pains  and  no  expense  were  spared  in  recov- 
ering manuscripts  and  in  collecting  libraries.  Princes  became 
the  personal  cultivators  and  profuse  patrons  of  learning.  The 
same  zeal  extended  itself  to  Greek  literature.  The  philosophers 
and  poets  of  antiquity  were  once  more  read  with  delight  in  their 
own  tongues.  The  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks,  in 
1453,  brought  a  throng  of  Greek  scholars,  with  their  invaluable 
literary  treasures,  to  Italy,  and  gave  a  fresh  impulse  to  the  new 
studies.  From  Italy,  the  same  literary  spirit  spread  over  the 
other  countries  of  Europe.  The  humanities  —  grammar,  rhet- 
oric, poetry,  eloquence,  the  classical  authors  —  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  studious  everywhere. 

"Other  futures  stir  the  world's  great  heart, 
Europe  is  come  to  her  majority, 
And  enters  on  the  vast  inheritance 
Won  from  the  tombs  of  mighty  ancestors, 
The  seeds,  the  gold,  the  gems,  the  silent  harps 
That  lay  deep  buried  with  the  memories  of  old  renown." 


"For  now  the  old  epic  voices  ring  again, 
And  vibrate  with  the  heat  and  melody, 
Stirred  by  the  warmth  of  old  Ionian  days. 
The  martyred  sage,  the  attic  orator. 
Immutably  incarnate,  like  the  gods. 
In  spiritual  bodies,  winged  words, 
Holding  a  universe  impalpable, 
Find  a  new  audience."' 


This  movement  brought  with  it  momentous  consequences  in 
the  field  of  religion.  It  marked  the  advent  of  a  new  stage  of 
culture,  when  the  Church  was  no  longer  to  be  the  sole  instructor ; 
when  a  wider  horizon  was  to  be  opened  to  the  human  intellect 
—  an  effect  analogous  to  that  soon  to  be  produced  by  the  grand 

•  Macaulay,  Essay  on  Mncchiavelli.     Essays,  i.  (New  York,  1861). 

*  Inf.,  i.  63.     "Chi  per  lungo  silenzio  parea  fioco. " 
'  George  Eliot's  Spanish  Gypsy,  pp.  5,  6. 


THE   REVIVAL   OF   LEARNING  59 

geographical  discovery  of  a  new  hemisphere.  Christianity  was 
to  come  into  contact  with  the  products  of  the  intellect  of  the 
ancient  nations,  and  to  assimilate  whatever  might  not  be  alien 
to  its  own  nature. 

For  several  hundred  years  the  Scholastic  philosophy  and 
theology  had  reigned  with  an  almost  undisputed  sway.  When 
the  Schoolmen  arose  with  their  methods  of  logical  analysis  and 
disputation,  the  old  compilations  or  books  of  excerpts  from  the 
Fathers,  out  of  which  theology,  for  a  number  of  centuries,  had 
been  studied,  quickly  became  obsolete,  and  the  adherents  of  the 
former  method  were  utterly  eclipsed  by  the  attractiveness  of 
the  new  science.  Young  men  by  thousands  flocked  after  the 
new  teachers.  From  about  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century 
Scholasticism  had  been  dominant.  Nor  was  this  era  without 
fruit.  As  a  discipline  for  the  intellect  of  semi-civilized  peoples; 
as  a  counterpoise  to  the  tendencies  to  enthusiasm  and  super- 
stition which  were  rife  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  as  a  means  of  reduc- 
ing to  a  regular  and  tangible  form  the  creed  of  the  Church,  so 
that  it  could  be  examined  and  judged,  the  scholastic  training 
and  the  intellectual  products  of  it  were  of  high  value. ^  But  the 
narrowness  and  other  gross  defects  of  the  scholastic  culture  were 
laid  bare  by  the  incoming  of  the  new  studies.  The  barbarous 
style  and  the  whole  method  of  the  Schoolmen  became  obnoxious 
and  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the  devotees  of  classical  learning. 
The  extravagant  hair-splitting  of  Scotus  and  Durandus,  when 
compared  with  the  nobler  method  of  the  philosophers  of  antiq- 
uity, excited  disdain.  The  works  of  Aristotle,  which  were  now 
possessed  in  their  own  language,  exposed  blunders  in  the  trans- 
lation and  interpretation  of  him,  which  brought  disgrace  upon 
the  Schoolmen.  Their  ignorance  of  history,  their  uncritical 
habit,  their  overdrawn  subtlety  and  endless  wrangling,  made 
them  objects  of  derision;  and  as  the  Schoolmen  had  once  sup- 
planted the  Compilers,  so  now  the  race  of  syllogistic  reasoners 
were,  in  their  turn,  laughed  off  the  stage  by  the  new  generation 
of  classical  scholars. 

But  the  fall  of  Scholasticism  did  not  take  place  until  it  had 
run  its  course  and  lost  its  vitality.  The  essential  principle  of 
the  Schoolmen  was  the  correspondence  of  faith  and  reason; 
the  characteristic  aim  was  the  vindication  of  the  contents  of 

'  Gieseler,  Dogmengeschichte,  p.  472  seq. 


60  THE   REFORMATION 

faith,  the  articles  of  the  creed,  on  grounds  of  reason.  This  con- 
tinued to  be  the  character  of  Scholasticism,  although  the  suc- 
cessors of  Anselm  did  not,  like  him,  aspire  to  establish  the  positive 
truths  of  Christianity  by  arguments  independent  of  revelation. 
"Fides  quserit  intellectum"  was  ever  the  motto.  There  were 
individuals,  as  Abelard  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  Roger  Bacon 
in  the  thirteenth,  who  seem  restive  under  the  yoke  of  authority, 
but  who  really  differ  from  their  contemporaries  rather  in  the 
tone  of  their  mind  than  in  their  theological  tenets.  Scholasti- 
cism, when  it  gave  up  the  attempt  to  verify  to  the  intelligence 
what  faith  received  on  the  authority  of  the  Church,  confessed 
its  own  failure.  This  transition  was  made  by  Duns  Scotus.  It 
was  Occam,  the  pupil  of  Scotus,  by  whom  the  change  was  con- 
summated. He  was  the  leading  agent  in  reviving  Nominalism. 
Although  both  Wickliffe  and  Huss  were  Realists,  it  was  Nomi- 
nalism that  brought  Scholasticism  to  an  end.  In  giving  only  a 
subjective  validity  to  general  notions  and  to  reasonings  founded 
on  them,  in  seeking  to  show  that  no  settled  conclusions  can  be 
reached  on  the  path  of  rational  inquiry  and  argument,  and  in 
leaving  no  other  warrant  for  Church  dogmas  except  that  of 
authority,  a  foundation  was  laid  for  skepticism.  The  way  was 
paved  for  the  principle  which  found  a  distinct  expression  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  that  a  thing  may  be  true  in  theology  and  false 
in  philosophy.  Occam  was  a  sturdy  opponent  of  the  temporal 
power  of  the  popes,  a  defender  of  the  independence  of  the  civil 
authority  as  related  to  them.  When  he  suggests  propositions 
at  variance  with  orthodoxy  and  argues  for  them,  he  saves  him- 
self from  the  imputation  of  heresy  by  professing  an  absolute 
submission  to  authority;  but  it  is  difficult  to  believe  these  pro- 
fessions perfectly  sincere.  Nominalism  necessarily  tended  to  en- 
courage, also,  an  empirical  method,  an  attention  to  the  facts  of 
nature  and  of  inner  experience,  in  the  room  of  the  logical  fabric 
which  had  been  subverted.  The  scholastic  philosophy,  when  it 
came  to  affirm  the  dissonance  of  reason  and  the  creed,  dug  its 
own  grave. ^  It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  Luther  in  his  youth 
was  a  diligent  student  of  Occam.     From  Occam  he  derived 


'  On   Occam,   see   Baur,   Dogmengeschichte,  ii.   236  seq. ;    Dorner,    Entwicke- 

lungsgsch.  von  der  Person  Christi,  ii.  447  seq. ;  Ritter,  Gsch.  d.  christl.  Phil.,  iv. 

574  seq. ;  Haureau,  De  la  Phil.  Scholastique,  t.  ii. ;  Hauck,  Realencyklopadie,  art. 
"Occam." 


THE   REVIVAL   OF   LEARNING  61 

defenses,  as  to  another  Nominalist,  D'Ailly,  he  owed  the  sug- 
gestion, of  his  doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Supper/ 

But  other  effects  of  a  more  positive  character  than  the  down- 
fall of  Scholasticism  flowed  from  the  renovation  of  learning. 
The  Fathers  were  brought  out  of  their  obscurity,  and  their  teach- 
ings might  be  compared  with  the  dogmatic  system  which  pro- 
fessed to  be  founded  upon  them,  but  which  had  really,  in  its 
passage  through  the  mediaeval  period,  taken  on  features  wholly 
unknown  to  the  patristic  age.  More  than  this,  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  the  primitive  documents  of  the 
Christian  religion,  were  brought  forward  in  the  original  tongues, 
to  serve  as  a  touchstone  by  which  the  prevailing  doctrinal  and 
ecclesiastical  system  must  be  tested.  The  newly  invented  art 
of  printing,  an  art  which  almost  immediately  attained  a  high 
degree  of  perfection,  in  connection  with  the  hardly  less  impor- 
tant manufacture  of  paper  from  linen,  stimulated,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  fed,  the  appetite  for  literature.  It  is  evident  that 
the  freshly  awakened  thirst  for  knowledge,  with  the  abundant 
means  for  gratifying  it,  must  produce  a  widespread  ferment. 
A  movement  had  begun,  in  the  presence  of  which  Latin  Chris- 
tianity, that  vast  fabric  of  piety  and  superstition,  of  reason  and 
imagination,  would  not  be  left  undisturbed. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  humanistic  revival,  it  assumed, 
north  of  the  Alps,  especially  in  Germany,  characteristics  differ- 
ent from  those  which  pertained  to  it  in  Italy.  In  Italy  the 
Humanists  were  so  smitten  with  antiqviity,  so  captivated  with 
ancient  thought,  as  to  look  with  indifference  and,  very  frequently, 
with  a  secret  skepticism,  upon  Christianity  and  the  Church.^ 
Even  an  Epicurean  infidelity  as  to  the  foundations  of  religion, 
which  was  caught  from  Lucretius  and  from  the  dialogues  of 
Cicero,  infected  a  wide  circle  of  literary  men.  Preachers,  in  a 
strain  of  florid  rhetoric,  would  associate  the  names  of  Greek  and 
Roman  heroes  with  those  of  apostles  and  saints,  and  with  the 
name  of  the  Saviour  himself.  If  an  example  of  distinguished 
piety  was  required,  reference  would  be  made  to  Numa  Pompi- 
lius.  So  prevalent  was  disbelief  respecting  the  fundamental 
truths  of  natural  religion  that  the  Council  of  the  Lateran,  under 

1  Rettberg,  Occam  und  Luther,  Studien  u.  Kritiken,  1831,  1.  Dorner,  ii.  607. 
"Diu  multumque  legit  scripta  Occam.  Hujus  acumen  anteferebat  Thomse  et 
Scoto."     Melancthon.      Vita  Lutheri,  v. 

^  Voigt,  Die  Wiederbelebung  d.  classischen  Alterthums,  p.  475  seq. 


62  THE  REFORMATION 

Leo  X.,  felt  called  upon  to  affirm  the  immortality  and  individu- 
ality of  the  soul.  The  revival  of  literature  in  Italy  was  thus,  to 
a  considerable  degree,  the  revival  of  paganism.  When  we  look 
at  the  poets  and  rhetoricians,  we  should  suppose  that  the  gods 
of  the  old  mythology  had  risen  from  the  dead,  while  in  the  minds 
of  thinking  men  Plato  and  Plotinus  had  supplanted  Paul  and 
Isaiah.  If  in  the  Florentine  school  of  Platonists,  under  the 
lead  of  Marsilius  Ficinus,  a  more  believing  temper  prevailed, 
yet  these  mingled  freely  with  Christian  tenets  fancies  borrowed 
from  the  favorite  philosophy.  It  is  not  meant  that  religion  was 
driven  out  by  humanism.  The  spirit  of  religion  had  vanished 
to  a  great  extent  before,  and  Humanism  took  possession  of 
vacant  ground.  Under  the  influence  of  the  classic  school,  says 
Guizot,  the  Church  in  Italy  ''gave  herself  up  to  all  the  pleasures 
of  an  indolent,  elegant,  licentious  civilization,  to  a  taste  for 
letters,  the  arts,  and  social  and  physical  enjoyments.  Look 
at  the  way  in  which  the  men  who  played  the  greatest  political 
and  literary  parts  at  that  period  passed  their  lives  —  Cardinal 
Bembo,  for  example  —  and  you  will  be  surprised  by  the  mix- 
ture which  it  exhibits  of  luxurious  effeminacy  and  intellectual 
culture,  of  enervated  manners  and  mental  vigor.  In  surveying 
this  period,  indeed,  when  we  look  at  the  state  of  opinions  and 
of  social  relations,  we  might  imagine  ourselves  living  among  the 
French  of  the  eighteenth  century.  There  was  the  same  desire 
for  the  progress  of  intelligence,  and  for  the  acquirement  of  new 
ideas;  the  same  taste  for  an  agreeable  and  easy  life,  the  same 
luxury,  the  same  licentiousness;  there  was  the  same  want  of 
political  energy  and  of  moral  principles,  combined  with  singular 
sincerity  and  activity  of  mind.  The  literati  of  the  fifteenth 
century  stood  in  the  same  relation  to  the  prelates  of  the  Church 
as  the  men  of  letters  and  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  did  to 
the  nobility.  They  had  the  same  opinions  and  manners,  lived 
agreeably  together,  and  gave  themselves  no  uneasiness  about 
the  storms  that  were  brewing  round  them.  The  prelates  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  Cardinal  Bembo  among  the  rest,  no  more 
foresaw  Luther  and  Calvin  than  the  courtiers  of  Louis  XIV. 
foresaw  the  French  Revolution.  The  analogy  between  the  two 
cases  is  striking  and  instructive."  * 

The  semi-pagan  spirit  was  not  confined  to  elegant  literature. 

1  Guizot,  Hist,  of  Civilization,  lect.  xi. 


THE   REVIVAL   OF   LEARNING  63 

It  entered  the  sphere  of  poUtics  and  practical  morals,  and  in 
this  department  found  a  systematic  expression  in  "The  Prince" 
of  Macchiavelli.  This  work,  which  was  intended  neither  as  a 
satire,  nor  as  an  exposure  of  king-craft  for  the  warning  of  the 
people,  but  as  a  serious  code  of  political  maxims,  sets  at  defiance 
the  principles  of  Christian  morality.  The  only  apology  that  can 
be  made  for  it  is  that  it  simply  reflects  the  actual  practice 
of  that  age,  the  habitual  conduct  of  rulers,  in  which  treachery 
and  dissimulation  were  accounted  a  merit/  Macchiavelli  was  a 
patriot,  he  was  at  heart  a  republican,  but  he  seems  to  have  con- 
cluded that  Italy  had  no  hope  save  in  a  despot,  and  that  all 
means  are  justifiable  which  are  requisite  or  advantageous  for 
securing  an  end.  Yet  he  was  supported  and  held  in  esteem  by 
Leo  X.  and  Clement  VII.,  and  inscribed  his  flagitious  treatise 
to  young  Lorenzo  de  Medici.  The  political  condition  of  Italy 
favored  the  growth  of  a  public  opinion,  in  which  the  vices  recom- 
mended in  "The  Prince"  were  looked  upon  not  only  without 
disapprobation,  but  as  commendable  qualities  in  a  statesman. 
In  Germany,  on  the  contrary,  from  the  outset,  the  new  learn- 
ing was  cultivated  in  a  religious  spirit.  It  kindled  the  desire 
to  examine  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  and  to  study  earnestly 
the  Scriptures.  Reuchlin,  the  recognized  leader  of  the  German 
Humanists,  considered  that  his  greatest  work,  his  most  durable 
monument,  was  his  Hebrew  Grammar.  His  battle  with  the 
monks  is  a  decisive  event  in  the  combat  of  the  new  era  with  the 
old.  Reuchlin  had  studied  Greek  at  Paris  and  Basel;  he  had 
lectured  in  various  schools  and  universities ;  had  been  employed 
in  important  offices  by  princes;  had  visited  Rome  on  official 
business;  at  Florence  had  mingled  with  Politian,  Pico  de  Mi- 
randola,  Marsilius  Ficinus ;  had  devoted  himself  enthusiastically 
to  the  study  of  Hebrew,  not  only  as  the  language  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, but  also  because  he  supposed  himself  to  find  in  the 
Kabbala  corroboration  and  illustration  of  Christian  doctrines. 
He  was  everywhere  famous  as  a  scholar.  The  Dominicans  of 
Cologne,  with  Hoogstraten,  an  ignorant  prior,  at  their  head, 
vexed  at  Reuchlin's  refusal  to  support  them  in  their  project  for 
destroying  Judaism  by  burning  all  the  Hebrew  literature  except 

*  See  the  remarks  of  Wheaton,  Elements  of  International  Law,  i.  pp.  18,  19. 
^  See  Macaulay's   Essay,   Macchiavelli.     L.    A.    Burd,  in   Cambridge   Modem 
History,  i.  190  seq. 


64  THE   REFORMATION 

the  Old  Testament  —  a  project  to  which  they  had  been  incited 
by  Pfefferkorn,  a  converted  Jew — put  forth  a  resolute  and  malig- 
nant effort  to  get  him  convicted  of  heresy  or  force  him  to  retract 
his  published  opinions.  Finding  that  soft  words  and  reasonable 
concessions  were  unavailing,  he  took  up  the  contest  in  right 
earnest,  and,  being  supported  by  the  whole  Humanist  party, 
which  rallied  in  defense  of  their  chief,  he  at  length  succeeded, 
though  not  without  passing  through  much  anxiety  and  peril, 
in  achieving  a  victory.  By  it  the  scale  was  turned  against  the 
adversaries  of  literature.  The  scholars  vanquished  the  monks. 
In  this  conflict  Reuchlin  was  efficiently  aided  by  Francis  of 
Sickingen  and  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  both  of  them  quite  disposed, 
if  it  were  necessary,  to  make  use  of  carnal  weapons  against  the 
hostile  ecclesiastics.  It  was  the  alliance  of  the  knights  with 
the  pioneers  of  learning.  The  Epistolce  Ohscurorum  Virorum, 
composed  by  Hutten  and  others,  are  a  scornful  satire  upon  the 
ignorance,  bigotry,  and  intolerance  of  Hoogstraten  and  the 
monks.^  The  applause  that  greeted  the  appearance  of  these 
letters,  in  which  the  monks  are  held  up  to  merciless  ridicule, 
was  a  significant  sign  of  the  progress  of  intelligence  (1516). 

The  Humanists  were  slow  in  gaining  a  foothold  in  the  uni- 
versities. These  establishments  in  Germany  had  been  founded 
on  the  model  of  Paris.  Theology  had  the  uppermost  seat,  and 
the  scholastic  philosophy  was  enthroned  in  the  chairs  of  instruc- 
tion. In  particular,  Paris  and  Cologne  were  the  strongholds  of 
the  traditional  theology.  The  Humanists  at  length  gained  ad- 
mission for  their  studies  at  Heidelberg,  Tiibingen,  and  some 
other  places.  In  1502,  the  Elector  Frederic  of  Saxony  organ- 
ized the  university  at  Wittenberg.  This  new  institution,  which 
declared  Augustine  to  be  its  patron  saint,  was  from  the  first 
favorable  to  Biblical  studies,  and  gave  a  hospitable  reception 
to  the  teachers  of  classical  learning.^  Here  was  to  be  the  hearth- 
stone of  the  Reformation, 

In  other  countries  the  cause  of  learning  was  advancing,  and 
brought  with  it  increased  liberality,  and  tendencies  to  reform 
in  religion.  In  1498,  Colet,  the  son  of  a  wealthy  London  mer- 
chant who  had  been  Lord  Mayor  of  the  city,  had  returned  from 

*  On  this  work  see  Baur,  Kirchengeschichte,  iv.  17,  and  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton, Discussions,  etc.   (1853). 

^  Von  Raumer,  Geschichte  der  Padogogik,  iv.  34. 


THE   REVIVAL   OF   LEARNING  65 

his  studies  in  Italy,  and  was  expounding  the  Greek  epistles  of 
Paul  at  Oxford,  to  the  delight  of  all  who  aspired  after  the  "  new 
learning,"  and  the  disgust  and  alarm  of  the  devotees  of  the 
scholastic  theology.  He  was  joined  by  Erasmus,  then  thirty 
years  of  age,  of  the  same  age  as  Colet,  and  not  yet  risen  to  fame, 
but  full  of  ardor  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  and  glad  to  enter 
into  the  closest  bonds  of  friendship  and  fellowship  with  the  more 
devout,  if  less  brilliant  and  versatile,  English  scholar.  To  them 
was  united  a  young  man,  Thomas  More,  who  was  destined  to 
the  law,  but  whose  love  of  knowledge  and  sympathy  with  the 
advancing  spirit  of  the  age,  brought  him  into  intimate  relations 
with  the  two  scholars  just  named. ^  Colet,  More,  and  Erasmus 
continued  to  be  friends  and  fellow-laborers  in  a  common  cause 
to  the  end.  Colet  became  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  founded  St.  Paul's 
school  at  his  own  expense,  and  boldly,  yet  with  gentleness,  ex- 
erted his  influence,  not  only  in  favor  of  classical  and  Biblical 
study,  but  also,  not  without  peril  to  himself,  against  supersti- 
tion and  in  behalf  of  enlightened  views  in  religion.  More  fol- 
lowed the  same  path,  and  in  his  "Utopia"  he  has  a  chapter  on 
the  religions  of  that  imaginary  commonwealth,  in  which  he 
represents  that  the  people  were  debating  among  themselves 
"whether  one  that  were  chosen  by  them  to  be  a  priest,  would 
not  be  thereby  qualified  to  do  all  the  things  that  belong  to  that 
character,  even  though  he  had  no  authority  derived  from  the 
Pope."  It  was  one  of  the  ancient  laws  of  the  Utopians  that  no 
one  should  be  punished  for  his  religion,  but  converts  were  to  be 
made  to  any  faith  only  "  by  amicable  and  modest  ways,  without 
the  use  of  reproaches  or  violence."  They  made  confession,  not 
to  priests,  but  to  the  heads  of  families.  Their  worship  was  in 
temples,  in  which  were  no  images,  and  where  the  forms  of  devo- 
tion were  carefully  framed  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  offend  the 
feelings  of  any  class  of  sincere  worshipers.  In  this  work,  as 
in  the  sermons  of  Colet,  even  such  as  were  preached  before 
Henry  VIII.,  there  was  a  plain  exposure  of  the  barbarities  and 
impolicy  of  war.  In  reference  to  what  we  term  political  and 
social  science,  there  appear  in  the  teachings  of  Colet  and  More, 
and  of  their  still  more  famous  associate,  a  humane  spirit  and  a 

*  At  Oxford,  as  at  Paris  and  elsewhere,  the  adversaries  of  the  "new  learn- 
ing" united  in  a  hostility  to  the  study  of  Greek.  It  reminds  one  of  the  an- 
tipathy to  the  same  study  which  existed  among  the  conservative  Romans  when 
Cicero  was  a  youth.     Forsyth,  Life  of  Cicero,  i.  20. 


66  THE   REFORMATION 

hostility  to  tyranny  and  to  all  oppressive  legislation,  which  are 
not  less  consonant  with  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  than  they  were 
in  advance  of  the  practice  of  the  times/ 

The  foremost  representative  of  Humanism,  the  incarnation, 
as  it  were,  of  its  genius,  was  Erasmus.^  The  preeminence  which 
he  attained  ai  a  literary  man  is  what  no  other  scholar  has  ap- 
proached, unless  it  be  Voltahe,  whom  he  resembled  in  the  def- 
erence paid  to  him  by  the  great  in  worldly  rank.  Each  was  a 
wit  and  an  iconoclast  in  his  own  way,  but  their  characters  in 
other  respects  were  quite  unlike.^  The  fame  of  Erasmus  was 
rendered  possible,  in  part,  by  the  universal  use  of  Latin,  as  the 
common  language  of  educated  men ;  a  state  of  things  of  which 
his  want  of  familiarity  with  Italian  and  English,  although  he 
had  sojourned  in  Italy  and  lived  long  in  England,  is  a  curious 
sign.  By  the  irresistible  bent  of  his  mind,  as  well  as  by  assidu- 
ous culture,  Erasmus  was  a  man  of  letters.  He  must  be  that, 
whatever  else  he  failed  to  be.  His  knowledge  of  Greek  was 
inferior  to  that  of  his  contemporary  and  rival,  Budaeus ;  he  took 
no  pains  to  give  his  style  a  classical  finish,  and  laughed  at  the 
pedantic  Ciceronians,  who  avoided  all  phraseology  not  sanc- 
tioned by  the  best  ancient  authority,  and  sometimes  all  words 
not  found  in  their  favorite  author.^  He  wrote  hastily :  "  I  pre- 
cipitate," he  says,  "rather  than  compose."^  Yet  the  wit  and 
wisdom  and  varied  erudition  which  he  poured  forth  from  his 
full  mind,  made  him  justly  the  most  popular  of  writers.  He 
sat  on  his  throne,  an  object  of  admiration  and  of  envy.  By  his 
multifarious  publications  and  his  wide  correspondence  with 
eminent  persons,  —  ecclesiastics,  statesmen,  and  scholars,  —  his 

*  The  relations  of  Colet,  More,  and  Erasmus,  and  the  characteristic  work  of 
each,  are  finely  described  in  the  truly  interesting  work  of  Seebohm,  The  Oxford 
Reformers  of  1498  (London,   1869). 

2  Opera,  xi.  vols.,  folio,  etc.  (Clericus)  1703.  There  are  lives  of  Erasmus  by 
Le  Clerc,  Bayle,  Knight,  Burigny  (Paris,  1757),  Jortin  (1758-60),  Hess  (Zurich, 
1790),  Adolf  Miiller  (1828),  by  Erhard  in  Ersch  und  Gruber's  Encyclopad.  (xxxvi.), 
and  by  others ;  a  sketch  by  Nisard  in  his  Etudes  sur  la  Renaissance.  These  biog- 
raphies are  criticised  by  Milman  in  his  interesting  article  on  Erasmus,  Quart. 
Rev.,  No.  ccxi.,  reprinted  in  his  Essays.  Life  by  Drummond,  2  vols.  (1873),  J. 
A.  Froude,  Life  and  Letters  (1895),  Life  by  Emerton  (1899).  Notwithstanding  the 
unfavorable  judgment  of  Johnson,  Jortin's  Life  is  anything  but  a  "dull  book." 
For  a  scholar,  notwithstanding  its  want  of  plan  and  of  symmetry,  it  is  one  of  the 
most  delightful  of  biographies. 

^  Coleridge  has  compared  and  contrasted  them,  The  Friend,  First  Landing 
Place :  Essay  i. 

*  Jortin,  i.   152.  »  Ibid.,  i.   152. 


ERASMUS  67 

influence  was  diffused  over  all  Europe.  In  all  the  earlier  part 
of  his  career  Erasmus  struggled  with  indigence.  His  health 
was  not  strong  and  he  thought  that  he  could  not  live  upon  a 
little.  His  dependence  upon  patronage  and  pensions  placed 
fetters  upon  him,  to  some  extent,  to  the  end  of  his  life;  yet  he 
loved  independence,  frequently  chose  to  receive  the  attentions 
of  the  great  at  a  distance  from  them,  and  selected  for  his  place 
of  abode  the  city  of  Basel,  where  he  was  free  alike  from  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  Erasmus,  by  his  writings  and  his 
entire  personal  influence,  was  the  foe  of  superstition.  In  his 
early  days  he  had  tasted,  by  constraint,  something  of  monkish 
life,  and  his  natural  abhorrence  of  it  was  made  more  intense  by 
this  bitter  recollection  and  by  the  trouble  it  cost  him,  after 
he  had  become  famous,  to  release  himself  from  the  thraldom  to 
which  his  former  associates  were  inclined  to  call  him  back.  In 
truth,  he  conducted  a  lifelong  warfare  against  the  monks 
and  their  ideas  and  practices.  His  "Praise  of  Folly"  and,  in 
particular,  the  ''Colloquies,"  in  which  idleness,  the  illiteracy, 
self-indulgence,  and  artificial  and  useless  austerities  of  "  the  reli- 
gious," were  handled  in  the  most  diverting  style,  were  read  with 
infinite  amusement  by  all  who  sympathized  with  the  new  studies, 
and  by  thousands  who  did  not  calculate  the  effect  of  this  tell- 
ing satire  in  abating  popular  reverence  for  the  Church.  The 
"Praise  of  Folly"  was  written  in  1510  or  1511,  in  More's  house, 
for  the  amusement  of  his  host  and  a  few  other  friends.  Folly 
is  personified,  and  represented  as  discoursing  to  her  followers 
on  the  affairs  of  mankind.  All  classes  come  in  for  their  share 
of  ridicule.  Grammarians  and  pedagogues,  in  the  foetid  atmos- 
phere of  their  schoolrooms,  bawling  at  their  boys  and  beating 
them;  scholastic  theologians,  wrangling  upon  frivolous  and 
insoluble  questions,  and  prating  of  the  physical  constitution 
of  the  world  as  if  they  had  come  down  from  a  council  of  the 
gods  —  "with  whom  and  whose  conjectures  nature  is  mightily 
amused;"  monks,  "the  race  of  new  Jews,"  who  are  surprised 
at  last  to  find  themselves  among  the  goats,  on  the  left  hand  of 
the  Judge,  faring  worse  than  common  sailors  and  wagoners; 
kings  who  forget  their  responsibilities,  rob  their  subjects,  and 
think  only  of  their  own  pleasures,  as  hunting  and  the  keeping 
of  fine  horses ;  popes  who,  though  infirm  old  men,  take  the  sword 
into  their  hands,  and  "  turn  law,  religion,  peace,  and  all  human 


68  THE   REFORMATION 

affairs  upside  down"  —  such  are  some  of  the  divisions  of  man- 
kind who  are  held  up  to  ridicule.  At  this  time  Julius  II.  filled 
the  papal  chair,  and  all  readers  of  Erasmus  must  have  recog- 
nized the  portrait  which  he  drew  of  the  warlike  old  pontiff. 
Erasmus  did  not  spare  the  legends  of  the  saints,  which  formed 
so  fair  a  mark  for  the  shafts  of  wit;  and  by  his  observations 
on  the  stigmata  of  St.  Francis,  he  offended  the  order  of  which 
he  was  the  almost  adored  founder.  When  requested  by  a  cardi- 
nal to  draw  up  the  lives  of  the  Saints,  he  begged  to  be  excused ; 
they  were  too  full  of  fables.^  His  comments  on  misgovernment 
in  the  Church,  on  the  extortions  and  vices  of  the  clergy,  from 
the  Pope  downwards,  were  not  the  less  biting  and  effective,  for 
the  humorous  form  in  which  they  were  generally  cast.  Indeed, 
as  Coleridge  has  said,  it  is  a  merit  of  the  jests  of  Erasmus  that 
they  can  all  be  translated  into  arguments.  There  was  what 
he  called  a  "Pharisaic  kingdom,"  and  he  would  never  write 
anything,  he  said,  that  would  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the  de- 
fenders of  it.^  In  his  own  mind,  he  distinguished  between  the 
Church  and  the  "Popish  sect,"  as  he  designated,  even  in  a  letter 
to  Melancthon,  the  supporters  of  ecclesiastical  abuses  and 
tyranny.^  There  were,  in  his  judgment,  two  evils  that  must 
be  cut  up  by  the  roots  before  the  Church  could  have  peace.  The 
one  was  hatred  for  the  court  of  Rome,  occasioned  by  her  intol- 
erable avarice  and  cruelty;  the  other  was  the  yoke  of  human 
constitutions,  robbing  the  people  of  their  religious  liberty.  He 
would  have  made  the  creed  a  very  short  one,  limited  to  a  few 
"plain  truths  contained  in  Scripture,"  and  leaving  all  the  rest 
to  the  individual  judgment.  He  thought  that  many  things 
should  be  referred,  not  according  to  the  popular  cry,  to  "the 
next  general  council,"  but  to  the  time  when  we  see  God  face  to 
face.*  Partly  from  the  natural  kindness  of  his  temper,  partly 
from  his  liberal  culture,  and  still  more,  perhaps,  from  a  personal 
appreciation  of  the  difficulties  and  uncertainties  of  religious  doc- 
trine, he  went  beyond  almost  every  other  eminent  man  of  his 
age  in  his  liking  for  religious  liberty.  He  was  conscious  that 
without  the  practice  of  a  pretty  wide  toleration  on  the  part  of 
rulers  in  Church  and  State,  he  would  himself  fare  ill.  He  was, 
in  fact,  obliged  to  be  constantly  on  the  defense  against  charges 

»  Jortin,  i.  294,  ii.  34.  »  Ibid.,  i.  313. 

2  Ihid.,  i.  284.  «  Ibid.,  i.  265. 


ERASMUS  69 

of  heresy.  He  had  said  things  without  number  which  could 
easily  be  turned  into  grounds  of  accusation.  His  enemies  were 
numerous  and  vindictive,  and  although,  in  the  literary  combat, 
he  was  more  than  a  match  for  all  of  them,  he  was  sensitiv^e  to 
their  attacks.  He  complains  that  the  Spaniard,  Stunica,  had 
presented  to  Leo  X.  a  libel  against  him,  containing  sixty  thou- 
sand heresies  extracted  from  his  writings.^  Notwithstanding 
all  his  denials  and  professions,  there  lurked  in  the  minds  of  the 
ardent  adherents  of  the  mediaeval  system,  an  instinctive  feeling 
that  he  was  a  dangerous  enemy,  and  that  his  influence,  so  far 
as  it  prevailed,  could  only  conduce  to  their  overthrow.  In  this 
feeling,  whatever  may  have  been  true  of  their  specific  charges, 
they  were  fully  justified.  Yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  con- 
demnation of  his  "Colloquies"  by  the  University  of  Paris,  and 
other  proceedings  of  a  like  nature,  which  emanated  from  the 
monkish  party,  did  not  operate  to  give  to  his  ideas  a  wider 
currency. 

But  there  was  a  positive  work  which  Erasmus  did,  the  solidity 
and  value  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  overestimate.  By  his  edi- 
tions of  Cyprian  and  Jerome,  and  his  translations  from  Origen, 
Athanasius,  and  Chrysostom,  he  opened  up  the  knowledge  of 
Christian  antiquity,  and  gave  his  contemporaries  access  to  a 
purer  and  more  Biblical  theology.  His  edition  of  the  New 
Testament,  his  paraphrases  of  the  New  Testament,  which  were 
at  one  time  appointed  to  be  read  in  the  churches  of  England, 
his  commentaries,  his  treatise  on  preaching,  and  various  other 
works,  promoted  Christian  knowledge  in  a  most  remarkable 
degree.  In  his  writings  of  this  sort,  along  with  enlightened 
views  of  doctrine  and  of  the  nature  of  the  Christian  life,  were 
earnest  complaints  against  the  multitude  of  church  ordinances 
contrived  for  the  oppression  of  the  poor  and  the  enriching  of 
the  clergy.  He  would  have  the  laity  instructed;  he  wished 
that  the  humblest  woman  might  read  the  Gospels.  The  judaiz- 
ing  customs  and  rites  with  which  the  Church  was  burdened, 
are  pointed  out  in  his  comments  on  Scripture.  In  these  publi- 
cations, which  the  art  of  printing  scattered  in  multiplied  editions 
over  Europe,  the  great  lights  of  the  patristic  age,  and  the  Apos- 
tles themselves,  reappeared  to  break  up  the  reign  of  superstition. 
Never  was  an  alliance  between  author  and  printer  more  happy 

»  Jortin,  i.  269. 


70  THE   REFORMATION 

for  both  parties,  or  more  fruitful  of  good  to  the  pubhc,  than  was 
that  between  Erasmus  and  Froben  of  Basel.  In  view  of  the 
whole  career  and  various  productions  of  the  Chief  of  the  Hu- 
manists, it  is  not  exaggerated  praise  to  say  that  he  was  "the 
living  embodiment  of  almost  all  that  which,  in  consequence  of 
the  revival  of  the  study  of  the  ancients,  the  mind  of  the  Western 
nations  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  had  wrought  out  and 
attained.  It  was  not  only  a  knowledge  of  languages,  not  only 
cultivation  of  style,  of  taste;  but  therewith  the  whole  mental 
cast  had  received  a  freer  turn,  a  finer  touch.  In  this  compre- 
hensive sense,  one  may  say  that  Erasmus  was  the  most  culti- 
vated man  of  his  times."  ^ 

Of  the  relations  of  Erasmus  to  Luther  and  the  Protestant 
cause,  there  will  be  an  occasion  to  speak  hereafter.  His  writ- 
ings and  the  reception  accorded  to  them  show  that  the  European 
mind  had  outgrown  the  existing  ecclesiastical  system,  and  was 
ready  to  break  loose  from  its  control. 

Some  of  the  principal  points  of  view  which  have  been  pre- 
sented in  this  and  in  the  preceding  lecture,  respecting  the  causes 
that  paved  the  way  of  the  Reformation,  may  be  briefly  set  forth 
as  follows :  — 

Among  the  salient  features  characteristic  of  the  Middle  Ages 
were:  the  subordination  of  civil  to  ecclesiastical  society,  of  the 
State  to  the  vast  theocratical  community  having  its  center  at 
Rome ;  the  government  of  the  Church  by  the  clergy ;  the  union 
of  peoples  under  a  common  ecclesiastical  law  and  a  uniform 
Latin  ritual;  an  intellectual  activity  shaped  by  the  clergy 
and  subservient  to  the  prevailing  religious  and  ecclesiastical 
system. 

Among  the  symptoms  of  the  rise  of  a  new  order  of  things 
were :  — 

1.  The  laical  spirit;  becoming  alive  to  the  rights  and  inter- 
ests of  civil  society;  developing  in  the  towns  a  body  of  citizens 
bold  to  confront  clerical  authority,  and  with  their  practical 
understanding  sharpened  and  invigorated  by  diversified  industry 
and  by  commerce;  a  laical  spirit  which  manifested  itself,  also, 
in  the  lower  classes,  in  satires  aimed  at  the  vices  of  the  clergy; 
which,  likewise,  gave  rise  to  a  more  intense  feeling  of  patriotism, 

*  Strauss,  Ulrich  von  Hutten    p.  481. 


ANTECEDENTS   OF   THE   REFORMATION  71 

a  new  sense  of  the  national  bond,  a  new  vigor   in  national 
churches.^ 

2.  A  conscious  or  unconscious  religious  opposition  to  the 
established  system;  an  opposition  which  appeared  in  sects  like 
the  Waldenses,  who  brought  forward  the  Bible  as  a  means  of 
correcting  the  teaching,  rebuking  the  officers,  or  reforming  the 
organization  of  the  Church;  or  in  Mystics  who  regarded  religion 
as  an  inward  life,  an  immediate  relation  of  the  individual  to 
God,  and  preached  fervently  to  the  people  in  their  own  tongue, 

3.  A  literary  and  scientific  movement,  following  and  dis- 
placing the  method  of  culture  that  was  peculiar  to  the  mediaeval 
age;  a  movement  which  enlarged  the  area  and  multiplied  the 
subjects  of  thought  and  investigation;  which  drew  inspiration 
and  nutriment  from  the  masterpieces  of  ancient  wisdom,  elo- 
quence, and  art. 

These  three  latent  or  open  species  of  antagonism  to  the  medi- 
aeval spirit  were  often  mingled  with  one  another.  The  Mystic 
and  the  Humanist  might  be  united  in  the  same  person.  The 
laical  spirit  in  its  higher  types  of  manifestation  was  reenforced 
by  the  new  culture.  Satirical  attacks  upon  absurd  ceremonies, 
upon  the  follies  and  sins  of  monks  and  priests,  had  a  keener 
edge,  as  well  as  a  more  serious  effect,  when  they  emanated  from 
students  familiar  with  Plautus  and  Juvenal. 

*  See  Hagen,  Deutschland's  literarische  u.  religiose  Verhdltnisse  im  Reforma- 
tionszeitalter,  i.  1-32.  But  Hagen  (p.  18)  separates  the  "  satyrisch  volksmassige  " 
opposition,  as  a  distinct  head,  in  the  room  of  the  more  general  rubric  above. 
He  does  not  omit  to  notice,  however,  the  other  elements  involved  in  the  lay 
spirit. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LUTHER  AND  THE   GERMAN  REFORMATION,   TO  THE  DIET  OF 
AUGSBURG,    1530 

Germany,  including  the  Netherlands  and  Switzerland,  was 
the  center,  the  principal  theater,  of  the  Reformation.  It  is 
not  without  truth  that  the  Germans  claim,  as  the  native  char- 
acteristic of  their  race,  a  certain  inwardness,  or  spirituality  in 
the  large  sense  of  the  term.  This  goes  far  to  explain  the  hos- 
pitable reception  which  the  Germanic  tribes  gave  to  Christianity, 
and  the  docility  with  which  they  embraced  it.^  They  found  in 
the  Christian  rehgion  a  congenial  spirit.  The  German  spirit  of 
independence,  or  love  of  personal  hberty,  is  a  branch  of  this 
general  habit  of  mind.  Germany  began  its  existence  as  a  dis- 
tinct nation  in  a  successful  resistance  to  the  attempt  of  the 
.clergy  to  dispose  of  the  inheritance  of  Charlemagne.^  It  was 
the  Germans  who  prevented  his  monarchy  from  being  converted 
into  an  ecclesiastical  State.  On  the  field  of  Fontenay  the 
forces  of  the  Franks  were  separated  into  two  hostile  divisions, 
the  one  composed  predominantly  of  the  German  element, 
which  planted  itself  on  the  German  traditional  law  for  regulat- 
ing the  succession;  the  other  of  the  Roman  element  that  had 
the  support  of  the  ecclesiastics.  Mysticism,  the  product  of  a 
craving  for  a  religion  of  less  show  and  more  heart,  had,  as  we 
have  seen,  its  stronghold,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  mediaeval 

*  "Es  war  das  Christen thiim  nichts  was  dem  Deutschen  fremd  und  widerwar- 
tig  gewesen  ware,  vielmehr  bekam  der  deutsche  Charakter  durch  das  Christen- 
thum  nur  die  Vollendung  seiner  selbst;  er  fand  sich  in  der  Kirche  Christi  selbst, 
nur  gehoben,  verklart  und  geheiligt. "  Vilmar,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Lit- 
eratur,  p.  7.  Tacitus  says  of  the  ancient  Germans,  that  they  conceived  it  un- 
worthy of  the  gods  to  be  confined  within  walls,  or  to  be  represented  by  'mages; 
and  that  the  head  of  a  family  exercised  a  priestly  function.  Germania,  cc.  ix., 
X.  Grimm  finds  in  the  descriptions  of  Tacitus  the  complete  germ  of  Protestant- 
ism —  "den  voUen  keim  des  Protestantismus. "  Deutsche  Mythologie,  p.  xliii. 
For  like  views  from  a  French  writer,  see  Taine,  Art  in  the  Netherlands,  pp.  32, 
33,  64.  The  Saxons  resisted  the  Gospel,  because  it  was  forced  on  them  by  a  con- 
queror. 

2  Ranke,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  i.  10  seq. 

72 


THE   GERMAN   PEOPLE  73 

period,  in  Germany.  The  triumph  of  the  Papacy  had  been 
due  to  the  division  between  the  emperor  and  the  great  vassals, 
not  to  any  deep-seated  fondness  for  a  foreign  and  ecclesiastical 
supremacy.  It  was  natural  that  the  Reformation,  which  was 
an  uprising  against  clerical  usurpation  and  in  favor  of  a  more 
inward  and  spiritual  worship,  should  spring  up  in  Germany. 
A  German  philosopher  has  dwelt  with  eloquence  upon  the  fact 
that  while  the  rest  of  the  world  had  gone  out  to  America,  to  the 
Indies,  in  quest  of  riches  and  to  found  an  earthly  empire  en- 
circling the  globe,  on  which  the  sun  should  never  set,  a  simple 
monk,  turning  away  from  the  things  of  sense  and  empty  forms, 
was  finding  Him  whom  the  disciples  had  once  sought  for  in  a 
sepulcher  of  stone.  Hegel  attributes  the  inception  and  success 
of  the  Reformation  to  this  "ancient  and  constantly  preserved 
inwardness  of  the  German  people,"  in  consequence  of  which 
they  are  not  content  to  approach  God  by  proxy,  or  put  their 
rehgion  outside  of  them,  in  sacraments  and  ceremonies,  in  sen- 
suous, imposing  spectacles.V'  A  German  historian  has  made 
substantially  the  same  assertion  respecting  the  genius  of  the 
German  people:  "One  peculiar  characteristic  for  which  the 
German  race  has  ever  been  distinguished  is  their  profound 
sense  of  the  religious  element,  seated  in  the  inmost 
depths  of  the  soul;  their  readiness  to  be  impelled  by  the  dis- 
cordant strifes  of  the  external  world  and  unfruitful  human 
ordinances,  to  seek  and  find  God  in  the  deep  recesses  of  their 
own  hearts,  and  to  experience  a  hidden  hfe  in  God  springing 
forth  in  opposition  to  barren  conceptions  of  the  abstract  in- 
tellect that  leave  the  heart  cold  and  dead,  a  mechanism  that 
converts  religion  into  a  round  of  outward  ceremonies."  ^ 

Unquestionably  the  hero  of  the  Reformation  was  Luther. 
Without  him  and  his  powerful  influence,  other  reformatory 
movements,  even  such  as  had  an  independent  beginning,  like 
that  of  Zwingli,  might  have  failed  of  success.  As  far  as  we  can 
judge,  they  would  have  produced  no  widespread  commotion 
as  to  lead  to  enduring  results.  It  has  been  said,  with  truth, 
of  Luther,  that  "his  whole  life  and  character,  his  heart  and  soul 
and  mind,  are  identified  and  one  with  his  great  work,  in  a  man- 
ner very  different  from  what  we  see  in  other  men.     Melancthon, 

*  Hegel,  Phil,  der  Geschichte ;    Werke,  ix.  499  seq. 
2  Neander,  v.  81. 


74  THE   REFORMATION 

for  instance,  may  easily  be  conceived  apart  from  the  Refor- 
mation, as  an  eminent  divine,  living  in  other  ages,  of  the 
Chm-ch,  as  the  friend  of  Augustine  or  the  companion  of  Fene- 
lon.  Even  Calvin  may  be  separated  in  thought  from  the  age 
of  the  Reformation,  and  may  be  set  among  the  Schoolmen,  or 
in  the  council  chamber  of  Hildebrand  or  of  Innocent,  or  at  the 
Synod  of  Dort,  or  among  Cromwell's  chaplains."  "But  Luther 
apart  from  the  Reformation  would  cease  to  be  Luther."  * 

He  was  born  in  1483,  at  the  very  time  when  Columbus  was 
struggling  to  obtain  the  means  of  prosecuting  that  voyage 
which  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  a  new  world.^  It  is  a  marked 
historical  coincidence,  which  has  more  than  once  been  pointed 
out,  that  the  reform  of  the  Christian  rehgion  should  be  simul- 
taneous with  the  opening  of  new  regions  of  the  globe,  into  which 
Christianity  was  to  be  carried.^  Luther's  family,  before  his 
birth,  had  removed  to  Eisleben  from  Mohra,  a  village  in  the 
Thuringian  Forest,  near  the  spot  where  Boniface,  the  apostle 
of  Germany,  had  first  preached  the  Gospel,* 

Six  months  later  they  removed  to  Mansfeld.  "I  am  a  peas- 
ant's son,"  he  says,  "my  grandfather,  my  great  grandfather 
were  thorough  peasants  (rechte  Bauern),"  His  domestic  train- 
ing was  overstrict  and  austere.  A  like  rigor  characterized  both 
father  and  mother.  So  he  felt  in  after  Hfe.  "The  apple," 
he  said,  should  always  he  beside  the  rod.^  But  at  heart,  he 
said,  "they  meant  it  well."  Then  and  ever  after  they  were 
faithful  in  their  affection  and  interest  in  his  welfare.     Both 

1  Archdeacon  Hare,  Vindication  of  Luther  against  his  recent  English  Assail- 
ants, p.  2. 

2  Melancthon  states  that  Luther's  mother  often  said  that  while  she  remem- 
bered with  certainty  the  day  and  hour,  she  could  not  remember  the  year  of  his 
birth ;  but  his  brother,  James,  an  honest  and  upright  man,  said  that  it  was  1483. 
Vita  M.  Lutheri,  ii.  It  was  not  1484,  as  some  have  thought.  See  Studien  u. 
Kritiken  (Oct.  1871,  1873,  1874).     His  birthday  was  the  10th  of  November. 

^  The  coincidence  of  the  great  geographical  discoveries  with  the  access  of 
light  respecting  the  Gospel  and  with  the  revival  of  learning,  is  noticed  by  the 
French  Reformer,  Lefevre,  Correspondance  des  Reformateurs  dans  les  Pays  de 
la  Langue  Fran(;aise,  par  A.  L.  Herminjard  (1866),  i.  94. 

*  A  copious  writer  upon  the  earlier  portion  of  the  life  of  Luther  is  Jurgens, 
Luther  von  seiner  Gehurt  bis  zum  Ablass-streite,  1483-1517.     3  vols.  (1846). 

'  This  is  from  one  of  his  talks  to  his  Wittenberg  students.  "My  parents," 
he  said,  "dealt  with  me  very  severely,  so  that  I  became  on  account  of  it  quite 
timid.  My  mother  flogged  me  once  on  account  of  a  little  nut,  so  that  after  it 
blood  flowed,  and  their  severity  and  the  rigorous  life  that  they  led  with  me  was 
the  occasion  of  my  being  driven  into  a  cloister  and  becoming  a  monk."  He 
points  out  the  bad  effect  on  children  from  excessive  punishment  from  parents 
and  schoolmasters. 


LUTHER'S   EARLY    LIFE  75 

parents  were  honest  and  just.  The  purity  and  piety  of  his 
mother  are  extolled  by  Melancthon.  His  father  was  unbend- 
ing in  his  moral  and  religious  principles.  They  taught  him  to 
pray  and  inculcated  the  decalogue,  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  But  the  father  had  not  a  warm  feeling  towards 
the  Clergy  as  a  body.  He  suspected  in  the  background  the 
presence  of  hypocrisy  and  knavery.  By  the  practice  of  econ- 
omy, he  was  able  to  send  his  son,  Martin,  to  the  school  in 
Mansfeld,  where  the  poor  teaching  had  a  little  Latin  mixed  in 
it  and  a  large  amount  of  harsh  discipline.  At  the  end  of  a 
year,  his  situation  was  improved  by  his  being  transferred  to 
a  better  school  in  Magdeburg,  where  his  teachers  were  a 
branch  of  the  "Brethren  of  the  Common  Life."  Having  spent 
a  year  in  study  at  Magdeburg,  he  was  sent  to  the  Franciscan 
school  at  Eismach,  where  he  sang  at  the  doors  of  the  principal 
citizens,  after  the  old  German  custom,  for  the  means  of  sup- 
port. Destined  for  the  legal  profession,  he  pursued,  at  the 
University  of  Erfurt,  the  Nominalist  logic  and  the  classics,  and 
made  a  beginning  in  the  study  of  Aristotle.  He  was  twenty 
years  old  and  had  taken  the  Bachelor's  degree  when  it  hap- 
pened that,  while  he  was  looking  one  day  at  the  books  in  the 
Erfurt  library,  he  casually  took  up.  a  copy  of  the  Latin  Bible. 
It  was  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  he  had  ever  taken  the  sacred 
volume  in  his  hands.  Struck  with  surprise  at  the  richness  of 
its  contents,  compared  with  the  extracts  which  he  had  been  wont 
to  hear  in  the  Church  services,  he  read  it  with  eagerness  and 
intense  delight.^  This  hour  was  an  epoch  in  his  existence.! 
Deep  religious  anxieties  that  had  haunted  him  from  childhood,' 
moved  him,  two  years  later,  against  the  will  of  his  father,  to  for^ 
sake  the  legal  profession  and  enter  the  Augustinian  convent. 

The  motive  for  this  change,  in  opposition  to  the  plan  of  his 
father,  was  the  monitions  of  conscience  which  made  him  feel 
more  and  more  that  this  was  the  only  right  and  safe  course. 
The  sudden  death  of  a  friend,  some  say  by  assassination  at  his 
side,  followed  by  a  stroke  of  lightning  in  a  forest  which  was 
near  costing  him  his  life,  moved  him  to  a  final  decision.     After 


'  Mathesius,  Historien  von  d.  Ehrwurdigen  M.  Luther,  p.  3  (ed.  1580).  This 
honest  chronicler  shows  how  grossly  defective  was  the  religious  instruction  given 
to  youth  by  reference  to  his  own  case.  The  passage  may  be  read  in  Marheinecke, 
Geschichte  d.  deutschen  Reformation,  i.  6. 


76  THE   REFORMATION 

an  evening  spent  with  his  friends  in  social  converse  and  enjoy- 
ment, he  was  received  into  the  Erfurt  Cloister  of  Augustinian 
Eremites  (Hermits),  an  earnest  and  devout  Order,  and  became 
a  monk  and  a  priest.  He  conformed  to  the  rules,  drawn  from 
teachings  of  Augustine,  and  took  the  monastic  vows.  He 
studied  Occam  and  the  scholastic  authors  already  known  to 
him,  but  especially  the  Bible,  a  vulgate  copy  of  which  was 
placed  in  his  hands.  His  father  came  to  witness  his  first  cele- 
bration of  the  mass  after  his  ordination  (in  1507),  and  acquiesced 
reluctantly  in  his  adoption  of  a  new  career,  but  without  being 
convinced  of  its  wisdom. 

Here  we  must  pause  to  speak  further  of  the  religious  expe- 
rience of  Luther;  for  whoever  would  explore  the  causes  of 
history  must  look  beneath  the  surface  of  events  at  the  spiritual 
life  of  men.  His  earlier  conception  of  Christianity  is  condensed 
in  one  expression,  that  he  had  looked  upon  Christ  as  a  lawgiver, 
a  second  Moses,  only  that  the  former  was  a  legislator  of  more 
awful  rigor.  "We  were  all  taught,"  he  says  in  his  "Table- 
talk,"  "that  we  must  make  satisfaction  for  our  sins,  and  that 
Christ  at  the  last  day  would  demand  how  we  had  atoned  for  our 
guilt,  and  how  many  good  works  we  had  done."  Melancthon 
thus  defines  the  motive  which  led  him  to  adopt  the  monastic 
life:  "Often  when  he  thought  on  the  anger  of  God  or  of  the 
wonderful  instances  of  divine  punishment,  he  was  seized  with 
a  terror  so  violent  that  he  was  well-nigh  bereft  of  life."  ^  When 
he  held  his  first  mass,  and  came  to  recite  the  words,  "I  bring 
this  offering  to  thee,  the  eternal,  Uving  God,"  he  was  with  diffi- 
culty restrained  from  rushing  away  from  the  altar  in  fear  and 
dismay.  "I  had,"  he  confesses,  "a  broken  spirit,  and  was 
ever  in  sorrow. "  "I  wore  out  my  body  with  vigils  and  fastings, 
and  hoped  thus  to  satisfy  the  law  and  deliver  my  conscience 
from  the  sting  of  guilt."  "Had  I  not  been  redeemed  by  the 
comfort  of  the  Gospel,  I  could  not  have  lived  two  years  longer." 
This  comfort  he  began  to  obtain  through  an  old  monk  who 
pointed  him  to  the  sentence  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  "I  believe 
in  the  forgiveness  of  sins,"  and  to  a  passage  in  St.  Bernard  where 
reference  is  made  to  Paul's  doctrine  that  "man  is  justified  by 
faith."  Still  more  was  he  aided  by  the  judicious  counsels  of 
John  Staupitz,  the  learned  and  pious  Vicar-general  of  his  order, 

»  Viia  M.  Luth.,  v. 


LUTHER'S   RELIGIOUS   EXPERIENCE  77 

whose  words,  Luther  afterwards  said,  pierced  him  "Hke  the 
sharp  arrow  of  a  strong  man."  Staupitz  told  him  that  "Christ 
does  not  terrify  but  consoles." 

In  1508,  Staupitz,  whom  the  Elector,  Frederick  the  Wise,  had 
made  Dean  of  the  Theological  Faculty  in  the  University  at 
Wittenberg  which  he  had  founded,  made  Luther  one  of  the 
instructors  there.  After  giving,  for  a  short  time,  lectures  on 
philosophical  teachings  of  Aristotle,  he  began  his  work  as  a 
theological  teacher. 

The  Elector  gave  to  the  professors  charge  over  the  principal 
Church  and  the  enjoyment  of  its  incomes;  his  idea  being  not 
only  to  organize  a  place  of  instruction,  but  to  collect  a  learned 
body,  to  which,  in  difficult  and  doubtful  questions,  he  might, 
according  to  the  prevailing  custom,  resort  for  counsel.  Here, 
to  quote  another's  words,  we  find  the  poor  miner's  boy  who, 
having  "become  a  young  Doctor,  fervent  and  rejoicing  in  the 
Scriptures,  well  versed  in  his  Augustine,  Aquinas,  Occam,  and 
Gerson,  familiar  with  all  the  subtle  theological  and  philosophical 
controversies  of  the  day,  was  already  spoken  of  honorably  in 
wider  circles,  as  a  good,  clever  thinker,  as  a  victorious  assailer 
of  the  supremacy  of  Aristotle;  took  a  lively  interest  in  the 
struggles  of  the  Humanists  against  the  ancient  barbarism; 
was  esteemed  by  the  most  celebrated  champions  of  the  freedom 
of  science ;  was  exalted  by  the  approbation  of  his  colleagues, 
of  the  students  that  flocked  to  his  lectures  —  in  a  word,  was 
advancing  with  rapid  steps  to  the  highest  honors  of  literary 
renown."  He  had  the  same  relish  for  hterature,  in  more 
full  blossom,  as  he  had  when  the  only  two  books  that  he 
carried  into  the  Convent  were  his  Plautus  and  Vergil.  He 
studied  Augustine  and  Tauler,  and  caught  glimpses  of  evan- 
gelical doctrine  in  them.^  It  was  in  these  days  that  he  came 
across  the  Uttle  book,  so  highly  prized  by  him,  which  he 
pubHshed  in  1516,  giving  it  the  title  of  "  German  Theology." 
Especially  he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  the  Psalms,  the 
prophets,  and  apostles.  He  applied  himself  hkewise  to  the 
study  of  Greek.  He  had  hardly  begun  to  expound  to  his  pupils 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  when  his  eye  fastened  upon  the 

*  He  recommends  Tauler  to  his  friend  Spalatin  (Dec.  14,  1516) :  "  Neque 
enim  ego  vel  in  Latina,  vel  in  nostra  lingua,  theologiam  vidi  salubriorem  et  cum 
evangelio  consonantiorem. " — De  Wette,  i.  46. 


78  THE   REFORMATION 

citation  from  a  prophet,  "the  just  shall  live  by  faith."  These 
words  never  ceased  to  sound  in  his  ear.  Going  to  Rome  on  a 
mission  for  his  order  (1511),  he  ran  about  full  of  devotional 
ardor,  from  church  to  church.  On  his  knees  he  chmbed  the 
steps  leading  to  the  vestibule  of  St.  Peter's  Church.  But  those 
words  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  "the  just  shall  Uve  by  faith,"  more 
and  more  impressed  themselves  upon  his  thoughts.  During 
his  slow  journey  homeward  he  pondered  these  words.  At 
length  their  full  meaning  burst  upon  him.  "Through  the 
Gospel  that  righteousness  is  revealed  which  avails  before  God 
—  by  which  He,  out  of  grace  and  mere  compassion,  justifies 
us  through  faith."  "Here  I  felt  at  once,"  he  says,  "that  I 
was  wholly  born  again  and  that  I  had  entered  through  open 
doors  into  Paradise  itself.  That  passage  of  Paul  was  truly  to 
me  the  gate  of  Paradise."  *  He  saw  that  Christ  is  not  come  as 
a  lawgiver,  but  as  a  Saviour;  that  love,  not  wrath  or  justice, 
is  the  motive  in  His  mission  and  work ;  that  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  through  Him  is  a  free  gift;  that  the  relationship  of  the 
soul  to  Him,  and  through  Him  to  the  Father,  which  is  expressed 
by  the  term  "faith,"  the  responsive  act  of  the  soul  to  the  divine 
mercy,  is  all  that  is  required.  This  method  of  reconciliation  is 
without  the  works  of  the  law.  Good  works  are  the  fruit  of 
faith,  a  spontaneous  and  necessary  product.  Now  he  had 
found  a  clew  to  the  understanding  of  the  Bible.  If  John  was 
his  favorite  Evangelist,  he  found  in  them  all  one  doctrine.  But 
in  the  writings  of  Paul,  whose  religious  development  so  closely 
resembled  his  own,  he  found  a  protest  against  judaizing  theology 
and  an  assertion  of  salvation  by  faith,  in  opposition  to  a  legal 
system,  which  gave  him  intense  satisfaction.  The  Epistles  to 
the  Romans  and  Galatians  were  his  familiar  companions;  the 
latter  he  styled,  in  his  humorous  way,  his  wife,  his  Catharine 
von  Bora. 

The  logical  consequences  of  his  new  position,  in  relation  to 
the  ordinances  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church,  and  the  principle  of 
Church  authority,  had  not  occurred  to  the  thoughts  of  Luther. 
It  was  only  providential  events,  and  the  reflection  which  they 
induced,  that  brought  the  latent  contents  of  his  principle  to  dis- 
tinct consciousness.  The  first  of  these  events  was  the  appearance 
of  a  hawker  of  indulgences,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Wittenberg. 

*  Prcef.  Operum  (1545). 


LUTHER'S   THESES  79 

This  was  John  Tetzel,  a  Dominican  from  Leipsic,  to  whom  this 
office  had  been  committed.  The  mischief  resulting  from  this 
traffic  was  forced  on  the  attention  of  Luther  by  facts  that  were 
disclosed  to  him  in  the  confessional.  Members  of  his  own 
flock  brought  to  him  in  the  confessional  indulgence  papers 
obtained  from  Tetzel  which  they  regarded  as  a  sufficient  basis 
for  absolution.  He  was  moved  to  preach  against  it,  to  write 
to  bishops  in  opposition  to  it,  and  finally  to  post  his  five  and 
ninety  theses  on  the  door  of  the  Church  of  All  Saints  at  Witten- 
berg (1517).  These  were  not  meant  as  a  formulated  creed, 
plainly  as  they  reflected  the  author's  tendencies  of  thought. 
They  were  a  challenge  to  an  academic  debate  —  a  placard  such 
as  his  colleagues  were  accustomed,  at  short  intervals,  to  post. 
They  were  in  Latin,  being  meant  for  scholars  and  students. 
Yet,  the  same  night,  he  preached,  in  the  Augustinian  cloister, 
in  German  a  sermon  of  the  same  tenor. 

Indulgences,  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church,  had  been  a 
relaxation  of  penance,  or  of  the  discipline  imposed  by  the  Church 
on  penitents  who  had  been  guilty  of  mortal  sin.  The  doctrine 
of  penance  required  that  for  such  sin  satisfaction  should  be 
superadded  to  contrition  and  confession.  Then  came  the  cus- 
tom of  commuting  these  appointed  temporal  penalties.  When 
Christianity  spread  among  the  northern  nations,  the  canonical 
penances  were  frequently  found  to  be  inapplicable  to  their 
condition.  Other  satisfactions  were  accepted  as  an  equivalent, 
such  as  pilgrimages,  alms,  etc.  The  practice  of  accepting  offer- 
ings of  money  in  the  room  of  the  ordinary  forms  of  penance 
harmonized  with  the  penal  codes  in  vogue  among  the  barbarian 
peoples.  At  first  the  priest  had  only  exercised  the  office  of  an 
intercessor.  Gradually  the  simple  function  of  declaring  the 
divine  forgiveness  to  the  penitent  transformed  itself  into  that 
of  a  judge.  By  Aquinas,  the  priest  is  made  the  instrument  of 
conveying  the  divine  pardon,  the  vehicle  through  which  the 
grace  of  God  passes  to  the  penitent.  With  the  jubilees,  or 
pilgrimages  to  Rome,  ordained  by  the  popes,  came  the  plenary 
indulgences,  or  the  complete  remission  of  all  temporal  penalties 
—  that  is,  the  penalties  still  obligatory  on  the  penitent  —  on 
the  fulfillment  of  prescribed  conditions.  These  penalties  might 
extend  into  purgatory,  but  the  indulgence  obliterated  them  all. 
In  the  thirteenth  century,  Alexander  of  Hales  and  Thomas 


80  THE  REFORMATION 

Aquinas  set  forth  the  theory  of  supererogatory  merits  or  the 
treasure  of  merit  bestowed  upon  the  Church  through  Christ 
and  the  saints,  on  which  the  rulers  of  the  Church  might  draw 
for  the  benefit  of  the  less  worthy  and  more  needy.  This  was 
something  distinct  from  the  power  of  the  keys,  the  power  to 
grant  absolution,  which  inhered  in  the  priesthood  alone.  The 
condition  of  absolution,  contrition,  however,  was  reduced  by 
Scotus  and  other  schoolmen  with  him  to  attrition,  i.e.  servile 
fear  of  punishment.  The  eternal  punishment  of  mortal  sin 
being  remitted  or  commuted  by  the  absolution  of  the  priest, 
it  was  open  to  the  Pope  or  his  agents,  —  for  the  Pope  could 
delegate  his  prerogative,  —  by  the  grant  of  indulgences,  to  re- 
mit the  temporal  or  terminable  penalties  that  still  rested  on  the 
head  of  the  transgressor.  Thus  souls  might  be  deUvered  forth- 
with from  purgatorial  fire.  Pope  Sixtus  IV.,  in  1477,  had 
officially  declared  that  souls  already  in  purgatory  are  emanci- 
pated per  modum  suffragii;  that  is,  the  work  done  in  behalf  of 
them  operates  to  effect  their  release  in  a  way  analogous  to  the 
efficacy  of  prayer.  Nevertheless,  the  power  that  was  claimed 
over  the  dead  was  not  practically  diminished  by  this  restric- 
tion. The  business  of  selUng  indulgences  had  grown  by  the 
profitableness  of  it.  "Everywhere,"  says  Erasmus,  "the  re- 
mission of  purgatorial  torment  is  sold;  nor  is  it  sold  only,  but 
forced  upon  those  who  refuse  it."  ^  As  managed  by  Tetzel  and 
the  other  emissaries  sent  out  to  collect  money  for  the  building 
of  St.  Peter's  Church,  the  indulgence  was  understood  to  be  a 
simple  bargain,  according  to  which,  on  the  payment  of  a  stipu- 
lated sum,  the  individual  received  a  full  discharge  from  the 
penalties  of  sin  or  procured  the  release  of  a  soul  from  the  flames 
of  purgatory.  Purchasers  of  letters  of  Indulgence  ("papal 
letters")  thus  interpreted  them.  Against  this  evil  Luther  pro- 
tested to  Archbishop  Albert,  one  of  the  Commissioners  in  charge 
of  the  trade  in  Indulgences.^  The  forgiveness  of  sins  was 
offered  in  the  market  for  money.  For  one's  personal  sins, 
besides  money,  confession  and  contrition,  were  set  down  as 
expected,  but  very  often  Uttle  account  was  made  of  this  circum- 
stance.    Other  graces  were  purchasable  —  three  at  no  other  cost. 

*  Prcef.   I.   Epist.  Corinth.     Opera,   vii.  851.     The  Emperor  Maximilian  had 
first  resisted  and  then  patronized  the  traffic. 

*  See  Briger,  Indulgenzen,  in  Hauck,  Realencyklopadie,  ix.  76  seq. 


LUTHER'S   THESES  81 

These  were  the  right  to  choose  a  confessor  preferred  by  him, 
share  in  the  merits  stored  up  by  the  Church,  and  the  deliverance 
of  souls  from  purgatory.  Against  this  lucrative  trade  Luther 
lifted  up  an  earnest  remonstrance.  The  doctrine  of  his  theses 
was  that  the  Pope  can  absolve  only  from  the  punishments 
which  he  himself  imposes;  that  these  do  not  reach  beyond 
death;  moreover,  that  the  right  to  absolve  pertains  to  bishops 
and  pastors,  not  less  than  to  the  Pope;  that  the  foundation  of 
indulgences  is  in  the  power  of  the  keys ;  that  absolution  belongs 
to  all  penitents,  but  is  not  indispensable,  and  is  of  less  account 
than  works  of  piety  and  mercy.  If  the  Pope  can  free  souls  from 
purgatory,  why  not  deliver  them  all  at  once?  The  treasury  of 
merits  is  not  denied,  but  the  Pope  cannot  dispense  it  further 
than  he  holds  in  his  hand  the  intercessions  of  the  Church.  The 
real  and  true  treasure  of  the  Church  is  asserted  to  be  the  gospel 
of  grace.  It  is  an  error  for  preachers  to  say  "that,  by  the  in- 
dulgences of  the  Pope,  a  man  is  loosed  and  saved  from  all  pun- 
ishment." ^  If  the  Pope  knew  what  extortion  is  practiced  by 
the  preachers  of  indulgences,  he  would  rather,  it  is  said,  see 
St.  Peter's  Church  reduced  to  ashes  than  built  up  out  of  the 
bones  and  flesh  of  the  lambs  of  his  flock.  The  theses  were  an 
attack  on  the  Thomist  theory  of  indulgences;  but  in  spirit, 
though  unconsciously  to  the  author,  they  struck  much  deeper.^ 
No  one  can  reasonably  doubt  that  Luther's  conscience  was 
in  the  work  on  which  he  had  entered.  If  ever  a  man  was  actu- 
ated by  simple,  profound  convictions  of  duty,  it  was  he.'  The 
abuses  against  which  he  cried  out  were  so  iniquitous  and  mis- 
chievous in  his  eyes  that  he  could  not  keep  silent.  He  had  no 
ambition  to  gratify.  As  far  as  his  earthly  prospects  were  con- 
cerned he  had  nothing  to  gain,  but  apparently,  in  case  he  per- 
severed, everything  to  lose.  He  had  no  thought  of  throwing 
off  his  allegiance  to  the  Roman  Church.  He  makes  no  attack 
on  the  Pope.    At  a  later  time  he  said  of  the  theses:   "I  allow 

'  From  the  20th  Thesis. 

'  For  a  Uteral  copy  of  the  theses,  see  Ranke,  vi.  80;  Loscher,  Reformations- 
acten,  i.  438.  They  are  given  in  English  in  Schaff,  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Ch.,  vi. 
160  seq. 

*  Luther  speaks  of  his  motives  in  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Merseburg  (Feb.  4, 
1520) ;  De  Wette,  i.  402.  His  course,  he  says,  would  be  that  of  a  madman  if 
he  were  actuated  by  wordly  motives.  See  also,  De  Wette,  iii.  215  (Letter  to 
Melancthon)  :  "Gloria  mea  est  hsec  una,  quod  verbum  Dei  pure  tradidi,  nee  adul- 
teravi  ullo  studio  glorise  aut  opulentiae." 


82  THE   REFORMATION 

these  propositions  to  stand,  that  by  them  it  may  appear  how 
weak  I  was,  and  in  how  fluctuating  a  state  of  mind  I  was  when 
I  began  this  business.  I  was  then  a  monk,  and  a  mad  papist; 
ready  to  murder  any  person  who  denied  obedience  to  the  Pope."  * 
He  had  embraced  with  his  whole  soul  a  truth  which  he  knew 
to  be  in  the  Scriptures,  but  where  it  would  lead  him  he  could 
not  anticipate.  He  was  still  an  obedient  son  of  the  Church. 
His  theses  were  propositions  for  dispute;  they  concluded  with 
the  sincere  and  solemn  declaration  that  he  affirmed  nothing  but 
left  everything  to  the  judgment  of  the  Church.  What  he  would 
do  in  case  the  Church  should  declare  against  him,  and  forbid 
him  to  teach  what  he  knew  to  be  the  Gospel;  what  course  he 
would  take  when  the  alternative  should  be  presented  of  giving 
up  a  truth  which  stood  in  letters  of  hght  on  the  page  of  Scrip- 
ture and  had  imprinted  itself  on  his  soul,  or  of  renouncing  an 
allegiance  in  which  he  had  grown  up,  the  obligation  to  which 
he  had  never  found  occasion  to  doubt  —  this  was  a  question 
which  did  not  occur  to  him.  This  portion  of  the  career  of 
Luther  is  intelligible  only  when  we  remember  that  the  incom- 
patibleness  of  the  traditional  view  of  Church  authority  with  his 
interpretation  of  the  Gospel  was  something  that  he  discovered 
by  degrees,  and  that  was  opened  to  him  by  the  actual  treatment 
which  his  doctrine  received  from  the  ecclesiastical  rulers.  Noth- 
ing but  his  intense,  living  beUef  respecting  the  nature  of  the 
Gospel  could  have  sufficed  to  neutralize  and  at  last  overcome 
his  estabUshed  deference  for  Church  superiors.  "0!"  he  ex- 
claims, "with  what  anxiety  and  labor,  with  what  searching  of 
the  Scriptures,  have  I  justified  myself  in  conscience,  in  standing 
up  alone  against  the  Pope!" 

The  theses  were  designed  to  subserve  an  immediate,  local 
end,  but  they  kindled  a  commotion  over  all  Germany.  Both 
the  religious  and  political  opponents  of  the  trade  in  indulgences 
greeted  so  able  and  gallant  a  spokesman.^  ''No  one,"  says 
Luther,  "would  bell  the  cats;  for  the  heresy-masters  of  the 
Preaching  Order  had  driven  all  the  world  to  terror  by  their 

»  Prcef.  Oper.  (1546).  The  following  year  (May  30,  1518),  in  his  letter  to 
Leo  X.,  covering  the  Resolutiones  of  the  theses,  he  says,  in  connection  with  other 
expressions  of  spiritual  allegiance:  "Vocem  tuam,  vocem  Christi,  in  te  prsesi- 
dentis  et  loquentis  agnoscam."     De  Wette,  i.   122. 

^  "Et  fovebat  me  utcumque  aura  ista  popularis,  quod  invisse  jam  essent  om- 
nibus artes  et  Romanationes  illse,  quibus  totum  orbem  impleverant  et  fatigaver- 
ant."     Prcef.  Operum  (1545). 


EFFECT   OF   THE   THESES  83 

fires."*  "Thanks  be  to  God,"  exclaimed  Reuchlin,  "the 
monks  have  now  found  a  man  who  will  give  them  such  full 
employment  that  they  will  be  glad  to  leave  my  old  age  to  pass 
away  in  peace."  ^  Luther  met  grateful  marks  of  courtesy  and 
appreciation  among  the  members  of  the  Augustinian  Order  at 
their  meeting  at  Heidelberg.  Maximilian  was  not  sorry  to  see 
the  theses  appear.  Erasmus  was  at  heart  glad  that  a  new  and 
vigorous  antagonist  of  superstition  had  stepped  into  the  arena. 
The  Pope  was  wiUing  to  see  nothing  more  serious  in  the  event 
than  a  quarrel  of  monks,  and  asked  the  General  of  Luther's 
Order  of  Augustinian  Eremites  to  see  that  quiet  was  observed 
among  his  monks.  But  opponents  quickly  appeared ;  Sylvester 
Prierias,  Master  of  the  Palace  at  Rome,  offended  that  his  Do- 
minican Order  should  meet  with  a  rebuff  from  so  insignificant 
a  quarter,  wrote  a  book  against  Luther  which  was  both  con- 
temptuous and  violent,  asserting  the  unquahfied  infahibihty  of 
the  Pope.  Tetzel  himself  published  a  writing  entitled  "  Coun- 
ter-theses" which  gained  for  him  at  once  a  doctorate,  although 
written  for  him  by  Conrad  Wimpina,  a  CathoHc  theologian, 
then  of  Frankfort  on  the  Oder,  who  had  been  his  teacher.  Dr. 
John  Eck,  an  expert,  well-read,  ambitious  theological  disputant, 
welcomed  so  fair  an  occasion  to  signalize  himself.^  Luther 
left  none  of  them  unanswered.  Their  appeals  to  human  author- 
ity led  him  to  plant  himself  more  distinctly  on  the  Scriptures; 
and  the  defense  of  the  detestable  practices  which  he  had  as- 
sailed inflamed  his  indignation  still  more  against  them.  Mean- 
time, in  Germany  his  theses  were  circulating  far  and  wide. 
Then  followed  his  summons  to  Rome,  which  was  modified,  at  the 
request  of  his  noble-hearted  protector,  Frederick  the  Wise, 
whom  Leo  X,,  for  political  reasons,  was  anxious  at  that  moment 
to  conciliate,  into  a  summons  to  Augsburg  to  meet  the  legate, 
Cajetan  (1518).  Cajetan  was  General  of  the  Dominican  Order. 
He  was  made  Cardinal,  and  received  the  insignia  at  the  Diet 
at  Augsburg.  He  was  an  able  theologian,  an  adherent  of  the 
system  of  Aquinas.  Luther  showed  his  profound  respect  for 
him  by  presenting  himself  before  him  when  they  met.  But 
Luther  found  him  supercihous,  "a  complete  Italian  and  Thom- 

*  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  1,  §  1,  n.  16. 

^  W'addington,  History  of  the  Reformation,  i.  98. 

*  These  documents  are  in  Loscher,  Reformationsacten,  ii. 


84  THE   REFORMATION 

ist,"  who  would  have  no  discussion,  and  whose  requirement 
that  Luther  should  retract  his  opinions,  was  met  with  a  civil 
but  decided  refusal.  "I  will  not,"  wrote  Luther  to  Carlstadt, 
"become  a  heretic  by  denying  the  truth  by  which  I  became  a 
Christian:  sooner  will  I  die,  be  burnt,  be  banished,  be  anathe- 
matized." ^  He  confronted  the  doctrinal  assertions  which  he 
was  bidden  to  accept  by  affirming  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
Bible  and  the  necessity  of  faith  to  derive  good  from  the  sacra- 
ments. He  broke  with  the  cardinal,  to  whom  his  dark,  ghstening 
eyes  were  nowise  agreeable,  having  left  for  him  a  protest  appeal- 
ing from  the  Pope  ill  informed  to  the  same  better  informed.^ 
He  was  aided  in  his  escape  through  a  small  gate  in  the  city 
wall  by  a  friend  and  escorted  on  horseback  by  another  on  the 
road  leading  homeward,  writing,  on  the  evening  of  his  arrival, 
that  he  was  ''full  of  peace  and  joy  and  wondered  that  so  many 
and  great  men  thought  this  trial  of  his  anything  important." 
When  a  bull  was  issued  from  Rome,  asserting  the  doctrine  as 
to  indulgences,  which  Luther  had  impugned,  he  published  his 
appeal  from  the  Pope  to  a  general  council.  Still  he  looked  for 
a  recognition  of  the  truth  from  the  authorities  of  the  Church. 
Miltitz,  the  second  messenger  from  the  papal  court,  conciliatory 
in  manner,  and  professing  a  sympathy  with  Luther  in  his 
hatred  of  the  worst  abuses  of  the  vendors  of  indulgences, 
actually  persuaded  him  to  abstain  from  further  combat  on 
the  subject,  provided  his  opponents  would  also  remain  silent.^ 
But  this  truce  was  quickly  broken  by  the  challenge  of  Eck  to 
a  pubhc  disputation  on  free  will  and  grace,  topics  on  which  he 
had  before  debated  with  Carlstadt,  one  of  the  theological  pro- 
fessors at  Wittenberg;  and  by  the  programme  which  Eck  put 
forth,  much  to  the  surprise  of  Luther,  in  which  his  opinions 
were  directly  assailed.  In  the  open  wagon  which  conveyed 
Luther  to  Leipsic  to  attend  the  disputation,  there  sat  by  his  side 
Philip  Melancthon,  a  young  man  of  twenty-two,  of  precocious 
talents  and  ripe  scholarship,  whom  his  grand-uncle,  Reuchlin, 
had  reconunended  to  the  Elector  as  Professor  of  Greek,  and 

'  Letter  to  Carlstadt  (Oct.  14,  1518),  De  Wette,  i.  161. 

2  Letter  to  Cajctan  (Oct.  18,  1518),  De  Wette,  i.  164. 

'  Luther  did  not  believe  in  the  sincerity  of  Miltitz 's  warm  demonstrations. 
He  speaks  of  his  "Italities  and  simulations" —  "Italitates  et  simulationes." 
Letter  to  Staupitz  (Feb.  20,  1519),  De  Wette,  i.  281.  See  also  the  Letter  to 
Egranus  (Feb.  2,  1519),  De  Wetto,  i.  21G. 


THE   LEIPSIC   DISPUTATION  85 

sent  to  Wittenberg  with  a  glowing  prophecy  of  the  eminence 
that  awaited  him/  At  the  age  of  twenty  his  powers  and  his 
scholarship  were  aUke  matm-e.  Unhke  Luther  in  his  tempera- 
ment, they  were  the  comiterparts  of  each  other.  Melancthon 
fomid  rest  and  support  in  the  robust  nature,  the  intrepid  spirit 
of  Luther;  Luther  admired,  in  turn,  the  fine  but  cautious  in- 
tellect, and  the  exact  and  ample  learning  of  Melancthon.  Each 
lent  to  the  other  the  most  effective  assistance.  So  intimate  is 
their  friendship  that  Luther  dares  to  get  hold  of  the  manuscript 
commentaries  of  his  young  associate,  whose  modesty  kept  them 
from  the  press,  and  to  send  them,  without  the  author's  knowledge, 
to  the  printer.^  ''This  little  Greek,"  said  Luther,  "surpasses 
me  in  theology,  too."  By  his  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  Melancthon  laid  the  foundation  of  the  Protestant 
exegesis;  and  his  doctrinal  treatise,  the  "Loci  Communes,"  won 
for  him  a  like  distinction  in  this  department  of  theology. 

The  cUsputation  at  Leipsic  went  on  for  a  week  between  Carl- 
stadt  and  Eck,  on  the  intricate  themes  of  free  will  and  grace, 
in  which  the  former  defended  the  Augustinian  and  the  latter 
the  semi-Pelagian  side,  and  in  which  the  fluency  and  adroitness 
of  Eck  shone  to  advantage  in  comparison  with  his  less  facile 
adversary.^  Then  Luther  ascended  the  platform.  He  was  in 
the  prime  of  Ufe,  in  his  thirty-sixth  year,  of  middling  height, 
at  that  time  thin  in  person,  and  with  a  clear,  melodious  voice. 
It  is  a  fact  not  without  interest  that  he  carried  in  his  hand  a 
nosegay  of  flowers.*  He  took  deUght  in  nature  —  in  the  sky, 
the  blossoms,  and  birds.  In  the  midst  of  his  great  conflict  he 
would  turn  for  recreation  to  his  garden,  and  correspond  with 
his  friends  about  the  seeds  and  utensils  that  he  wanted  to  pro- 

*  Reuchlin  to  Melancthon,  Corpus  Ref.,  i.  33.  Reuchlin  applies  to  him  the 
promise  to  Abraham  (Gen.  xii.)  :  "Ita  mihi  prsesagit  animus,  ita  spero  futu- 
rum  de  te,  mi  Philippe,  meum  opus  et  meum  solatium."  Melancthon 's  original 
name  was  Schwarzerd,  which,  according  to  the  prevailing  custom,  he  rendered 
into  Greek.  To  render  proper  names  into  Greek  or  Latin  was  usual  with  scholars. 
Thus  Hausschein  became  CEcolampadius ;  Schneider  —  i.e.  Kornschneider  — 
was  transformed  into  Agricola.  Johannes  Krachemberger  wrote  to  Reuchlin 
to  furnish  him  with  a  Greek  equivalent  for  his  not  very  euphonious  name.  Von 
Raumer,  Geschichte  der  Pcedagogik,  i.  129. 

2  Letter  to  Melancthon,  De  Wette,  ii.  238.     See  also  ii.  303. 

*  A  concise,  instructive  Article  on  "  Eck  "  in  Hauck,  Realencyklopddie,  v.  138 
seq.,  describes  this  combatant  and  the  other  participants  in  the  Leipsic  Debate. 

*  For  an  interesting  description  of  Luther,  as  he  appeared  in  this  Disputation, 
from  the  pen  of  Petrus  Mosellanus,  see  Waddington,  i.  130.  See  also  Ranke, 
Deutsch.  Gsch.,  i.  281.     It  lasted  from  June  27,  to  July  16,  1519. 


86  THE   REFORMATION 

cure  for  it.^  At  home  and  with  his  friends  he  was  full  of  humor, 
was  enthusiastically  fond  of  music,  and  played  with  skill  on  the 
lute  and  the  flute ;  in  his  natural  constitution  the  very  opposite 
of  an  ascetic.^  His  powerful  mind  —  for  he  was,  probably, 
the  ablest  man  of  his  time  —  was  connected  with  a  childlike 
freshness  of  feeling,  and  a  large,  generous  sympathy  with 
human  nature  in  all  its  innocent  manifestations. 

Standing  before  Duke  George,  who  proved  to  be  a  decided 
enemy  of  the  Reformation,  and  before  the  auditory  who  sat 
with  him,  Luther  discussed  with  his  opponent  the  primacy  of 
the  Pope.  In  the  course  of  the  colloquy  he  declared  that  the 
headship  of  the  Pope  is  not  indispensable;  that  the  Oriental 
Church  is  a  true  Church,  without  the  Pope;  that  the  primacy 
is  of  human  and  not  of  divine  appointment.  Startling  as  these 
propositions  were,  they  were  less  so  than  was  his  avowal,  in  re- 
sponse to  an  inquiry,  that  among  the  articles  for  which  John 
Huss  had  been  condemned  at  the  Council  of  Constance,  there 
were  some  that  were  thoroughly  Christian  and  evangelical.  A 
feeling  of  amazement  ran  through  the  assembly,  and  an  audible 
expression  of  surprise  and  anger  broke  from  the  lips  of  the 
Duke.^ 

The  Disputation  at  Leipsic,  by  stimulating  Luther  to  further 
studies  into  the  origin  of  the  Papacy  and  into  the  character  of 
Huss  and  of  his  opinions,  brought  his  mind  to  a  more  decided 
renunciation  of  human  authority,  and  to  a  growing  suspicion 
that  the  papal  rule  was  a  usurpation  in  the  Church  and  a  hateful 
tyranny.^  Up  to  this  time  his  attempt  had  been  to  influence 
the  ecclesiastical  rulers;  now  he  turned  to  the  people.  His 
"Address  to  the  Christian  Nobles  of  the  German  Nation"  was 
a  ringing  appeal  to  the  German  laity  to  take  the  work  of  refor- 
mation into  their  own  hands,  to  protect  the  German  people 
against  the  avarice  and  tyrannical  intermeddling  of  the  Roman 

*  "While  Satan  with  his  members  is  raging,  I  will  laugh  at  him  and  will  at- 
tend to  my  gardens,  that  is,  the  blessings  of  the  Creator,  and  enjoy  them  praising 
him."     Letter  to  Wenc.  Link.  (Dec.  1525),  De  Wette,  iii.  58.     See,  also,  iii.  172. 

*  But  he  was  abstemious  in  food  and  drink;  "valde  modici  cibi  et  potus," 
says  Melancthon.  Often  for  many  consecutive  days  he  would  take  only  a  little 
bread  and  fish.     Vita  Lutheri,  v. 

3  Ranke,   i.   279  seq. 

*  Before  the  Disputation  at  Leipsic,  he  wrote  to  Spalatin  (March  13,  1519) : 
"Verso  et  decreta  Pontificium,  pro  mea  disputatione,  et  (in  aurem  tibi  loquor) 
nescio  an  Papa  sit  Antichristus  ipse  vel  apostolus  ejus :  adeo  misere  corrumpitur 
et  crucifigitur  Christus  (id  est  Veritas)  ab  eo  in  decretis."     De  Wette,  i.  238. 


THE   ADDRESS   TO   THE   GERMAN   NATION  87 

ecclesiastics,  to  deprive  the  Pope  of  his  rule  in  secular  affairs, 
to  abolish  compulsory  celibacy,  to  reform  the  convents  and 
restrain  the  mendicant  orders,  to  come  to  a  reconciliation  with 
the  Bohemians,  to  foster  education.  The  spiritual  Power  en- 
throned at  Rome  was  able  by  its  pretensions  to  shield  itself 
against  reforms.  It  claimed  to  be  the  sole  authoritative  source 
of  reforms.  If  Scripture  was  cited  in  behalf  of  them,  it  was 
answered  that  the  Pope  alone  is  competent  to  say  what  Scripture 
meant.  In  this  harangue  Luther  strikes  a  blow  at  the  dis- 
tinction between  laymen  and  priest,  on  which  the  hierarchical 
system  rested.  "We  have  one  baptism  and  one  faith,"  he  says, 
"and  it  is  that  which  constitutes  a  spiritual  person."  He  com- 
pares the  Church  to  ten  sons  of  a  king,  who,  having  equal 
rights,  choose  one  of  their  number  to  be  the  "  minister  of  their 
common  power."  "A  company  of  pious  laymen  in  a  desert, 
having  no  ordained  priest  among  them,  would  have  the  right  to 
confer  that  office  on  one  of  themselves,  whether  he  were  married 
or  not ;  and  "  the  man  so  chosen  would  be  as  truly  a  priest  as  if 
all  the  bishops  in  the  world  had  consecrated  him."  The  priestly 
character  of  a  layman  and  the  importance  of  education  are  the 
leading  topics  in  this  stirring  appeal.  His  treatise  on  the  Baby- 
lonian Captivity  of  the  Church  followed,  in  which  he  handled 
the  subject  of  the  sacraments.  The  number  of  these  he  limits 
to  three.  Baptism,  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  Repentance,  and 
holds  that  the  last  is  not  properly  a  sacrament,  but  a  return  to 
Baptism.  Absolution  is  not  a  function  confined  to  the  priest. 
Transubstantiation  is  an  idea  which  no  one  is  bound  to  accept. 
The  Eucharist  is  not  a  sacrifice.  He  condemns  the  denial  of 
the  cup  to  the  laity.  In  one  passage  he  declares  that  the  bishop 
of  Rome  has  become  a  tyrant ;  he,  therefore,  has  no  fear  of  his 
decrees.  Neither  he  nor  a  general  council  has  a  right  to  set  up 
new  articles  of  faith.  He  attacks  the  statutes  that  violated 
Christian  liberty,  such  as  those  which  prescribed  pilgrimages, 
fastings,  and  monasticism.  He  had  discovered  the  close  con- 
nection between  the  doctrinal  and  practical  abuses  of  the  church.* 
He  regards  with  favor  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  and  divorce 
as  in  some  cases  lawful.  At  this  time  (1520)  he  sent  to  Leo  X. 
a  letter  containing  expressions  of  personal  respect,  but  com- 
paring him  to  a  lamb  in  the  midst  of  wolves  and  to  Daniel  among 

»  Waddington,  i.  267, 


88  THE   REFORMATION 

the  lions,  and  invoking  him  to  set  about  a  work  of  reformation 
in  his  corrupt  court  and  in  the  Church/  With  it  he  sent  his 
Discourse  De  Lihertate  Christiana. 

In  this  sermon  on  "The  Freedom  of  a  Christian  Man," 
Luther  set  forth  in  a  noble  and  elevated  strain  the  inwardness 
of  true  religion,  the  marriage  of  the  soul  to  Christ  through  faith 
in  the  Word,  and  the  vital  connection  of  faith  and  works.  Faith 
precedes  since  by  faith  we  are  justified;  but  good  works  are 
necessarily  the  fruit  of  faith.  In  this  treatise  he  rises  above 
the  atmosphere  of  controversy,  and  unfolds  his  idea  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  genial  tone  of  devout  feeling. 

His  course  during  the  period  between  the  posting  of  the 
theses  and  the  final  breach  with  Rome  can  be  judged  correctly 
only  when  it  is  remembered  that  his  mind  was  in  a  transition 
state.  He  was  working  his  way  by  degrees  to  the  light.  This 
explains  the  seeming  inconsistencies  in  his  expressions  relative 
to  the  Pope  and  the  Church,  which  occasionally  appear  in  his 
letters  and  publications  during  this  interval.  "I  am  one  of 
those,"  he  said,  "among  whom  Augustine  has  classed  himself 
—  of  those  who  have  gradually  advanced  by  writing  and  teach- 
ing; not  of  those  who  at  a  single  bound  spring  to  perfection 
out  of  nothing."  ^ 

The  Bull  which  condemned  forty-one  propositions  of  Luther, 
and  excommunicated  him  if  he  should  not  recant  within  sixty 
days,  after  which  every  Christian  magistrate  was  to  be  required 
to  arrest  him  and  deliver  him  at  Rome,  was  issued  on  the  16th 
of  June,  1520.  It  had  been  prepared  by  Cajetan,  Prierias,  and 
by  Eck,  whose  numerous  attacks  on  Luther  in  speech  and  in 
writings  received  the  reward  of  carrying  to  Germany  this  Papal 
fulmination,  in  which  one  item  in  the  condemned  propositions 
ascribed  to  Luther  was  the  33d :  "  that  to  burn  heretics  is  against 
the  will  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Tlie  papal  condemnation  of  errors 
was  made  binding  on  all  persons  and  States.  Was  it  not,  then, 
ex  cathedra  f  Luther,  in  review  of  it,  cited  with  telling  emphasis 
the  condemnation  of  Christ  of  the  treatment  of  heretics  sanc- 

'  Luther  seems  to  have  entertained,  up  to  this  time,  a  personal  regard  and 
respect  for  Leo,  but  the  intermingling  of  personal  compliments  with  denuncia- 
tions of  his  court  and  of  the  Roman  Church  (which  is  styled  "a  licentious  den 
of  robbers  ")  was  ill  adapted  to  conciliate  the  Pope's  favor. 

2  Prcef.  Operum :  "Qui  de  nihilo  repente  fiunt  summi,  cum  nihil  sint,  neque 
operati,    neque   tentati,    neque    experti." 


THE   BULL   OF   EXCOMMUNICATION  89 

tioned  in  it.  Luther  put  forth  a  pamphlet  in  response  to  this 
execrable  Bull  of  Antichrist,  as  he  called  it.  On  the  10th  of 
December,  in  the  public  place  at  Wittenberg,  —  whither  all 
friends  of  Evangelical  truth  had  been  invited  on  the  bulletin 
board  of  the  University,  —  in  the  presence  of  an  assembly  of 
doctors  of  the  University,  students  and  people,  he  threw  it, 
together  with  the  book  of  Canon  Law,  and  a  few  other  equally 
obnoxious  writings,  into  the  flames.  By  this  act  he  completed 
his  rupture  with  the  Papal  See.  There  was  no  longer  room 
for  retreat.     He  had  burned  his  ships  behind  him.^ 

This  decisive  step  drew  the  attention  of  the  whole  German 
nation  to  Luther's  cause,  and  tended  to  concentrate  all  the 
various  elements  of  opposition  to  the  Papacy.^  Luther  found 
political  support  in  the  friendly  disposition  of  the  Elector,  and 
from  the  jurists  with  whom  the  conflict  of  the  spiritual  with 
the  civil  courts  was  a  standing  grievance.  The  Papal  Bull  was 
extensively  regarded  as  a  new  infringement  of  the  rights  of  the 
civil  power.  The  religious  opposition  to  the  Papacy,  which  had 
been  quickened  by  Luther's  theological  writings,  and  which 
found  an  inspiring  ground  of  union  in  his  appeal  to  the  Divine 
Word  and  his  arraignment  of  the  Pope  as  an  opposer  of  it, 
engaged  the  sympathy  of  a  large  portion  of  the  inferior  clergy 
and  of  the  monastic  orders.  Luther  also  found  zealous  allies 
in  the  literary  class.  The  Humanists  were  either  quiet,  labo- 
rious scholars,  who  applied  their  researches  in  philosophy  and 
classical  literature  to  the  illustration  of  the  Scriptures  and  the 
defense  of  Scriptural  truth  against  human  traditions,  of  whom 
Melancthon  was  a  type ;  or  they  were  poets,  filled  with  a  national 
spirit,  eager  to  avenge  the  indignities  suffered  by  Germany  under 
Italian  and  Papal  rule,  and  ready  not  only  to  vindicate  their 
cause  with  invectives  and  satires,  but  also  with  their  swords. 
These  were  the  combatants  for  Reuchlin  against  the  Dominican 
persecution;  the  authors  of  the  "Epistolse  Obscurorum  Vi- 
rorum."  Luther,  with  his  deeply  religious  feeling,  had  not 
liked  the  tone  of  these  productions.  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  one 
of  the  writers,  the  most  prominent  representative  of  the  youth- 
ful literati,  to  whom  we  have  just  referred,  had  not  been  inter- 
ested at  first  in  the  affair  of  Luther,  which  he  regarded  as  a 
monkish  and  theological  dispute.     But  he  found  help  for  his 

1  Strauss,   Ulrich  von  Hutten,  p.  397.  ^  See  Ranke,  i.  307  seq. 


90  THE   REFORMATION 

own  aims  in  its  wide-reaching  scope  and  became  one  of  the  Re- 
former's ardent  supporters.  He  seconded  Luther's  rehgious 
appeals  by  scattering  broadcast  his  own  caustic  phiHppics  and 
satires,  in  which  the  Pope  and  his  agents  and  abettors  in  Ger- 
many were  lashed  with  unbridled  severity.  Abandoning  the 
Latin,  the  proper  tongue  of  the  Humanists,  he  began  to  write 
in  the  vernacular.  Hutten  enlisted  his  friend  Francis  von  Sick- 
ingen,  another  patriotic  knight,  and  the  most  noted  of  the  class 
who  offered  themselves'  to  redress  wrongs  by  exploits  and  incur- 
sions undertaken  by  their  own  authority,  often  to  the  terror  of 
those  who  were  thus  assailed.  Sickingen  sent  to  Luther  an 
invitation,  in  case  he  needed  a  place  of  refuge,  to  come  to  his 
strong  castle  at  Ebernburg.* 

We  must  pause  here  to  look  for  a  moment  at  the  political 
condition  of  Germany.  In  the  fifteenth  century  the  central 
government  had  become  so  weakened,  that  the  Empire  existed 
more  in  name  than  in  reality.  Germany  was  an  aggregate  of 
numerous  small  states,  each  of  which  was,  to  a  great  extent, 
independent  within  its  own  bounds.  The  German  king  having 
held  the  imperial  office  for  so  many  centuries,  the  two  stations 
were  practically  regarded  as  inseparable;  but  neither  as  king 
of  Germany  nor  as  the  head  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  had  he 
sufficient  power  to  preserve  order  among  the  states  or  to  com- 
bine them  in  common  enterprises  of  defense  or  of  aggression. 
By  the  golden  bull  of  Charles  IV.,  in  1356,  the  electoral  con- 
stitution was  defined  and  settled,  by  which  the  predominance 
of  power  was  left  in  the  hands  of  the  seven  leading  princes  to 
whom  the  choice  of  the  Emperor  was  committed.  No  measures 
affecting  the  common  welfare  could  be  adopted  except  by  the 
consent  of  the  Diet,  a  body  composed  of  the  electors,  the  princes, 
and  the  cities.  Private  wars  were  of  frequent  occurrence  be- 
tween the  component  parts  of  the  country.  They  might  enter 
separately  into  foreign  alliances.  During  the  reign  of  Maxi- 
milian great  efforts  were  made  to  establish  a  better  constitution, 
but  they  mostly  fell  to  the  ground  in  consequence  of  the  mutual 
unwillingness  of  the  states  and  the  Emperor  that  either  party 
should  exercise  power.  The  Public  Peace  and  the  Imperial 
Chamber  were  constituted,  the  former  for  the  prevention  of 

*  See  the  very  interesting  biography  by  D.  F.  Strauss,  Ulrich  von  Hutten 
(2d  ed.,  1871). 


'  ■'^ .?;«*• 


POLITICAL   CONDITION   OF   GERMANY  91 

intestine  war,  and  the  latter  a  supreme  judicial  tribunal;  but 
neither  of  these  measures  was  more  than  partially  successful. 
The  failure  to  create  a  better  organization  for  the  Empire  in- 
creased the  ferment,  for  which  there  were  abundant  causes 
prior  to  these  abortive  attempts.  The  efforts  of  the  princes  to 
increase  their  power  within  their  several  principalities  brought 
on  quarrels  with  bishops  and  knights,  whose  traditional  privi- 
leges were  curtailed.  Especially  among  the  knights  a  mutinous 
feeling  was  everywhere  rife,  which  often  broke  forth  in  deeds 
of  violence  and  even  in  open  warfare.  The  cities  complained 
of  the  oppression  which  they  had  to  endure  from  the  imperial 
government  and  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  them  by  the  princes 
and  by  the  knights.  Thriving  communities  of  tradesmen  and 
artisans  invited  hostility  from  every  quarter.  The  heavy  bur- 
dens of  taxation,  the  insecurity  of  travel  and  of  commerce,  were 
for  them  an  intolerable  grievance.  At  the  same  time,  all  over 
Germany,  the  rustic  population,  on  account  of  the  hardship  of 
their  situation,  were  in  a  state  of  disaffection  which  might  at 
any  moment  burst  forth  in  a  formidable  rebellion.  In  addition 
to  all  these  troubles  and  grievances,  the  extortions  of  Rome 
had  stirred  up  a  general  feeling  of  indignation.*  Vast  sums  of 
money,  the  fruit  of  taxation  or  the  price  of  the  virtual  sale  of 
Church  offices,  were  carried  out  of  the  country  to  replenish  the 
coffers  of  the  Pope. 

On  the  death  of  Maximilian  (January  12,  1519),  the  prin- 
cipal aspirants  for  the  succession,  were  Charles,  the  youthful 
King  of  Spain,  and  Francis  I.,  the  King  of  France.  Charles, 
who  was  the  grandson  of  Maximilian,  and  the  son  of  Phihp  and 
of  Joanna,  the  daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  inherited 
Austria  and  the  Low  Countries,  the  crowns  of  Castile  and  Aragon, 
of  Navarre,  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  together  with  the  vast  terri- 
tories of  Spain  in  the  New  World.  The  Electors  offered  the 
imperial  office  to  Frederic  of  Saxony,  a  prince  held  in  universal 
esteem  for  his  wisdom  and  high  character;  but  he  judged  that 
the  resources  at  his  command  were  not  sufficient  to  enable  him 
to  govern  the  empire  with  efficiency,  and  he  cast  his  influence 
with  decisive  efTect  in  favor  of  Charles.  The  despotism  of  the 
French  King  was  feared,  and  Charles  was  preferred,  partly 
because,  from  the  situation  of  his  hereditary  dominions  in  Ger- 

•  Ranke,  i.   132  seq. 


92  THE   REFORMATION 

many  and  from  the  extent  of  his  power,  it  was  thought  that  he 
would  prove  the  best  defender  of  the  Empire  against  the  Turks. 
But  the  princes  took  care,  in  the  "capitulation"  which  accom- 
panied the  election  of  Charles,  to  interpose  safeguards  against 
encroachments  on  the  part  of  the  new  Emperor.  He  promised 
not  to  make  war  or  peace,  or  to  put  any  state  under  the  ban  of 
the  Empire  without  the  assent  of  the  Diet;  that  he  would 
give  the  public  offices  into  the  hands  of  the  Germans,  fix  his 
residence  in  Germany,  and  not  bring  foreign  troops  into  the 
country. 

The  concentration  of  so  much  power  in  a  single  individual 
excited  general  alarm.  Such  an  approach  to  a  universal  mon- 
archy had  not  been  seen  in  Europe  since  the  days  of  Charle- 
magne. The  independence  of  all  other  kingdoms  would  seem 
to  be  put  in  peril.  It  was  reasonably  feared  that  Charles  would 
avail  himself  of  his  vast  strength  to  restore  the  Empire  to  its 
ancient  limits,  and  to  revive  its  claim  to  supremacy.  This 
apprehension,  of  itself,  would  account  for  the  hostility  of  Francis, 
apart  from  his  personal  disappointment  at  the  result  of  the 
imperial  election.  But  there  were  particular  causes  of  disagree- 
ment between  the  rival  monarchs  which  could  not  fail  to  pro- 
duce an  open  rupture.  In  behalf  of  the  Empire,  Charles  claimed 
Lombardy  and  especially  Milan,  together  with  a  portion  of 
Southern  France  —  the  old  kingdom  of  Burgundy  or  Aries. 
As  the  heir  of  the  dukes  of  Burgundy,  he  claimed  the  parts  of 
the  old  dukedom  which  had  been  incorporated  in  France,  after 
the  death  of  Charles  the  Bold.  It  had  been  the  ambitiqn  of 
France,  since  the  expedition  of  Charles  VIII.,  to  establish  its 
power  in  Italy.  Francis,  besides  his  determination  to  cling  to 
the  conquests  which  he  had  already  made,  claimed  Naples  in 
virtue  of  the  rights  of  the  house  of  Anjou,  which  had  reverted 
to  the  French  crown;  he  claimed  also  Spanish  Navarre,  which 
had  been  seized  by  Ferdinand,  and  the  suzerainty  of  Flanders 
and  Artois.  The  scene,  as  well  as  the  main  prize  of  the  conflict, 
was  to  be  in  Northern  Italy.  The  preponderance  of  strength 
was  not  so  decidedly  on  the  side  of  Charles  as  might  at  first 
appear.  The  Turks  perpetually  menaced  the  eastern  frontiers 
of  his  hereditary  German  dominions,  which  were  given  over  to 
Ferdinand,  his  brother.  His  territories  were  widely  separated 
from  one  another,  not  only  in  space,  but  also  in  language,  local 


CHARLES   V.  93 

institutions,  and  customs.  Several  of  the  countries  over  which 
he  reigned  were  in  a  state  of  internal  confusion.  This  was  true 
of  Spain,  as  well  as  of  Germany. 

For  months  after  the  death  of  Maximilian,  the  Empire  was 
without  a  head.  Frederic  of  Saxony,  who  was  disposed  to  pro- 
tect rather  than  repress  the  movement  of  Luther,  was  regent 
in  Northern  Germany.  Had  he  been  in  middle  life  and  been 
endued  with  an  energy  equal  to  his  sagacity  and  excellence,  he 
might  have  complied  with  the  preference  of  the  Electors  and 
have  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  German  nation,  which 
was  now  conscious  of  the  feeling  of  nationality,  and  full  of  aspi- 
rations after  unity  and  reform.* 

Charles  V.  was  not  the  man  to  assume  such  a  position.  He 
developed  a  tenacity  of  purpose,  a  restless  activity,  and  a  far- 
sighted  calculation,  which  were  far  in  advance  of  the  expec- 
tations entertained  respecting  him  in  his  early  youth.  But  his 
whole  history  shows  that  he  had  no  adequate  appreciation  of 
the  moral  force  of  Protestantism.  His  personal  sympathies 
were  with  the  old  system  in  which  he  had  been  educated,  and 
this  was  more  and  more  the  case  in  the  latter  part  of  his  career. 
But  apart  from  his  own  opinions  and  predilections,  his  position 
as  ruler  of  Spain,  where  the  most  bigoted  type  of  Catholicism 
prevailed,  would  have  the  effect  to  prevent  him  from  severing 
his  connection  with  the  Roman  Church.  Moreover,  the  whole 
idea  of  the  Empire,  as  it  lay  in  his  mind  and  as  it  was  involved 
in  all  his  ambitious  schemes,  presupposed  the  unity  of  the 
Church  and  union  with  the  Papacy.  The  sacred  character, 
the  peculiar  supremacy  of  the  Empire,  rested  upon  the  con- 
ception that  it  was  more  than  the  kingdom  of  Germany,  more 
than  a  German  empire,  that  it  was  the  ally  and  protector  of 
the  entire  Catholic  Church.  Germany  was  regarded  by 
Charles  V.  as  only  one  of  the  countries  over  which  he  ruled. 
The  peculiar  interests  of  Germany  were  subordinate,  in  his 
thoughts,  to  the  more  comprehensive  schemes  of  political 
aggrandizement  to  which  his  life  was  devoted.  He  acted  in 
the  affair  of  the  Reformation  from  political  motives.  These, 
at  least,  were  uppermost,  and  accordingly  his  conduct  varied 
to  conform  to  the  interest  of  the  hour.  He  might  deplore  the 
rise  and  progress  of  Lutheranism,  but  he  desired  still  less  the 

*■  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire,  p.  315. 


94  THE   REFORMATION 

success  of  Francis  I.  in  the  Italian  peninsula.  Moreover,  in 
carrying  out  his  plans  for  himself,  and  for  the  realization  of  the 
idea  of  the  Empire,  he  might  fall  into  conflict  with  the  head  of 
the  Church.  The  old  contest  of  pope  and  emperor  might  be 
revived.  This  was  the  more  liable  to  occur  in  a  period  when 
the  popes  were  anxiously  laboring  for  their  own  temporal  power, 
and  for  the  advancement  of  their  relatives  in  Italy.  A  com- 
bination of  all  the  forces  opposed  to  the  new  doctrine  might 
suffice  to  crush  it.  But  would  this  combination  be  effected? 
In  addition  to  the  jealousies  that  existed  between  the  principal 
potentates,  the  Emperor,  the  Pope,  and  the  King  of  France, 
divisions  might  easily  arise  among  the  Catholic  princes  in  Ger- 
many, from  the  fear,  for  example,  of  the  increasing  power  of 
the  house  of  Austria.  In  addition  to  the  conflicting  interests 
out  of  which  the  Lutheran  movement  might  find  its  profit,  Ger- 
many and  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  were  incessantly 
threatened  by  the  Turks.  It  might  be  impracticable  to  per- 
secute the  disciples  of  the  new  doctrine,  and  at  the  same  time 
secure  their  help  against  the  common  enemy  of  Christendom. 
When  Charles  V.  first  arrived  in  Germany  (in  1520,  when 
he  was  crowned  at  Aix  la  Chapelle),  he  had  reasons  for  cooperat- 
ing with  the  Pope,  and  when  this  was  the  case  his  own  prefer- 
ences seconded  the  motive  of  policy.  Yet  Luther  and  the 
Lutheran  cause  had  attracted  a  religious  and  national  sympathy 
that  was  too  strong  to  permit  him  to  be  condemned  by  the 
Emperor  without  a  hearing.  A  less  summary  course  must  be 
taken  than  that  which  the  papal  party  urged  upon  him.^  Hence 
the  summons  which  Luther  received  to  appear  and  answer  for 
himself  at  his  first  German  Diet,  the  Diet  of  Worms  (1521). 
In  this  summons  Luther  recognized  a  call  of  God  to  give  testi- 
mony to  the  truth.  He  had  letters  of  safe-conduct  from  the 
Emperor  and  the  princes  through  whose  territories  his  route 
lay,  as  he  made  his  journey  in  the  farmer's  wagon,  furnished 
by  the  city  of  Wittenberg.  When  he  went  to  Augsburg  to  meet 
Cajetan,  he  had  worn  a  borrowed  coat.  He  was  now  an  object 
of  universal  interest  and  attention.  At  Erfurt,  the  University 
went  out  in  a  procession  to  meet  him,  some  on  horseback,  with 

'  Of  the  two  nuncios  who  were  sent  to  the  imperial  court,  Caraccioli  and 
Aleander,  the  latter  was  most  distinguished.  He  figured  in  the  Diet  of  Worms. 
Of  him  Luther  has  given  a  sarcastic  description,  which  is  quoted  by  Seckendorf, 
lib.  i..  sect.  34.  §  81. 


THE   DIET   OF   WORMS  95 

a  great  throng  on  foot,  and  welcomed  him  with  a  speech  from 
the  rector,  who  met  at  the  head  of  a  mounted  escort  at  a  place 
forty  miles  distant.  He  persevered  in  his  journey,  notwith- 
standing illness  by  the  way  and  many  voices  of  discouragement 
—  mingled,  to  be  sure,  with  others  more  cheering  —  which  met 
him  at  every  step/  When  he  reached  the  last  station  he  was 
advised  by  a  councilor  of  Frederick  not  to  go  on;  the  fate  of 
Huss,  it  was  said,  might  befall  him.  To  which  he  repHed  :  "  Huss 
has  been  burned,  but  not  the  truth  with  him.  I  will  go  in, 
though  as  many  devils  were  aiming  at  me  as  there  are  tiles  on 
the  roof."^  He  rode  into  the  town  at  midday,  through  streets 
crowded  with  people  who  had  gathered  to  see  him.  In  the  lodg- 
ings provided  for  him  by  the  Elector  he  spent  the  time  partly  in 
prayer ;  at  intervals  playing  on  his  lute ;  administering,  also,  the 
communion  to  a  Saxon  nobleman  in  the  house,  who  was  danger- 
ously ill.  On  the  following  day,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
having  first  solemnly  commended  himself  to  God  in  prayer,  he  was 
escorted  by  the  imperial  master  of  the  horse,  Ulrich  of  Pappen- 
heim,  to  the  hall  of  audience.  He  was  conducted  by  a  private 
and  circuitous  way  in  order  to  avoid  the  press  of  the  multitude ; 
yet  the  windows  and  roofs  that  overlooked  the  route  which  he 
took  were  thronged  with  spectators.  As  he  entered  the  august 
assembly  he  beheld  the  youthful  Emperor  on  his  throne,  with 
his  brother,  the  Archduke  Ferdinand,  at  his  side,  and  a  brilliant 
retinue  of  princes  and  nobles,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  among  whom 
were  his  own  sovereign,  Frederick  the  Wise,  and  the  Landgrave, 
Philip  of  Hesse,  who  was  then  but  seventeen  years  of  age, 
together  with  the  deputies  of  the  imperial  cities,  foreign  am- 
bassadors, and  a  numerous  array  of  dignitaries  of  every  rank. 
Aleander,  one  of  the  Papal  Nuncios,  had  arranged  the  order  of 
proceedings.  A  jurist  representing  the  Emperor  had  the  same 
name,  as  it  happened,  as  the  old  antagonist  of  Luther,  Eck.  It 
was  estimated  that  not  less  than  five  thousand  persons  were 
collected  in  and  around  the  hall.     For  a  moment  Luther  seemed 

*  Some  interesting  details  are  given  by  Myconius,  Hist.  Reformat.,  p.  38  (in 
Cyprian's  Urkunden). 

^  Concerning  the  precise  form  of  the  expression,  see  Ranke,  i.  334,  and  his 
reference  to  De  Wette,  ii.  139.  But  Spalatin  gives  the  expression  in  the  more 
usual  form  in  which  it  is  quoted:  "Dass  er  mir  Spalitino  aus  Oppenheim  gin 
Wurmbs,  schriebe :  'Er  wollte  gin  Wurmbs,  wenngleich  so  viel  Teufel  darrinnen 
waren,  als  immer  Zeigel  da  waren.'"  Jahrb.  vond.  Ref.  Luth.  (1521),  p.  39  (in 
Cyprian's  Urkunden).       He  arrived  at  Worms,  April  16,  1521. 


96  THE   REFORMATION 

to  be  somewhat  dazed  by  the  imposing  aspect  of  the  assembly. 
He  spoke  in  a  low  voice,  and  many  thought  that  he  was  afraid. 
"It  was  planned  that  two  questions  should  be  propounded  for 
Luther  to  return  categorical  answers."  Some  of  his  books  had 
been  placed  near  the  Emperor.  The  first  question  was,  Did 
he  write  them  and  others  published  under  his  name  ?  His  legal 
adviser  was  the  Wittenberg  Professor  of  Jurisprudence,  Dr. 
Jerome  Schur  Schurff,  who  called  for  the  reading  of  the  titles. 
When  this  was  done,  Luther  gave  an  affirmative  answer.  In 
reply  to  the  second  question  whether  he  retracted  what  he  had 
written  in  his  books,  the  titles  of  which  had  been  read,  he  asked 
for  time  to  frame  an  answer  suitable  to  so  grave  a  question.* 
This  was  not  with  any  thought  of  retracting.  Time  was  given 
him,  and  on  the  following  evening,  at  an  hour  so  late  that  lamps 
were  lighted,  he  was  once  more  ushered  into  the  assembly.  He 
exhibited  no  sign  of  embarrassment,  but  in  a  calm,  determined 
manner,  in  strong  and  manly  tones  of  voice,  he  said  that  he 
could  not  retract  those  deemed  correct  by  his  opponents,  nor, 
without  conniving  at  wickedness,  what  he  had  written  against 
the  manifest,  the  evident  tyranny  and  corruptions  of  the 
Papacy.  Admitting  that  he  had  sometimes  written  against  in- 
dividuals with  undue  acrimony,  yet  he  could  not  revoke  what  he 
had  said  without  warranting  his  adversaries  in  saying  that  he 
had  retracted  his  antagonism.  He  then  declined  to  revoke  his 
opinions  or  condemn  his  WTitings,  until  they  should  be  disproved 
by  some  other  authority  than  pope  or  council,  even  by  clear 
testimonies  of  Scripture  or  conclusive  arguments  from  reason. 
A  council  could  err,  he  said;  and  he  declared  himself  ready  to 
prove  it.  When  a  final,  definite  answer  to  the  question  whether 
he  would  recant,  was  demanded,  he  repHed  that  his  conscience 
would  not  permit  him:  "Here  I  stand;  I  cannot  do  otherwise. 
God  help  me.  Amen,"  There  were  many  besides  the  Saxon 
Elector,  whose  German  hearts  were  thrilled  by  the  noble  de- 

'  That  Luther  asked  for  delay  has  been  made  a  ground  of  reproach  by  ad- 
versaries. See  the  answer  to  Maimbourg,  in  Seckendorf,  lib.  i.  sect.  40,  §  94. 
It  has  occasioned  perplexity  to  Protestant  writers.  See  Waddington,  i.  348. 
But  the  explanation  is  that  he  had,  in  all  probability,  not  expected  a  peremp- 
tory demand  of  this  nature,  and  wished  for  time  to  frame  an  answer  —  espe- 
cially in  view  of  the  fact  that  his  writings  contained,  among  other  things,  many 
personalities.  The  request  for  postponement  was  doubtless  in  accordance  with 
the  advice  of  Jerome  Schurff,  his  legal  assistant.  On  this  topic  see  Gieseler,  iv. 
i.  1,  §  1,  n.  79.  Ranke  observes:  "Auch  er  nahm  die  Formlichkeiten  des  Reiches 
fiir  sich  in  Anspruch."     Deutsch.  Gsch.,  i.  334. 


THE   DIET   OF   WORMS  97 

meanor  of  Luther  on  that  momentous  day/  Tokens  of  admi- 
ration and  sympathy  were  not  wanting.  Had  violence  been 
attempted,  there  were  too  many  young  knights,  armed  to  the 
teeth  and  resolved  to  protect  him,  to  give  such  an  attempt 
an  assurance  of  success.  One  who  was  present  testifies  that 
Luther  returned  to  his  lodgings,  full  of  courage  and  cheerful- 
ness, and  declared  that  had  he  a  thousand  heads,  he  would  have 
them  all  struck  off  before  he  would  make  a  retraction.^  The 
Elector  Frederick  expressed  his  delight  that  "Father  Martin" 
spoke  so  excellently  both  in  Latin  and  German  before  the 
Emperor  and  the  Estates.  The  Elector,  however,  would  have 
preferred  to  have  had  Luther  speak  more  modestly  in  relation  to 
Councils.  Some  advised  Charles  to  disregard  his  safe-conduct, 
but  he  remembered  the  blush  of  Sigismund,  when  Huss  looked 
him  in  the  face  at  Constance,  and  refused.  Even  Duke  George 
of  Saxony  cried  out  against  an  act  so  derogatory  to  German 
honor.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Emperor,  in  his  last  days, 
at  the  Convent  of  Yuste,  when  superstition  had  more  sway  over 
him,  regretted  his  own  fidelity  to  duty  and  honor  at  the  time 
when  he  had  Luther  in  his  power.'  At  the  request  of  the  Ger- 
man princes,  a  commission  made  an  unsuccessful  effort  to  lead 
Luther  to  modify  his  position  as  to  General  Councils.  When 
a  part  of  the  assembly  had  gone  home,  and  after  Luther  had 
left,  the  decree  was  proclaimed  that  placed  Luther  under  the 
ban  of  the  Empire.  This  edict,  in  its  spirit  and  language,  as 
well  in  its  provisions,  was  harsh  and,  in  the  highest  degree, 
hostile  to  Luther.  Immediately  after  the  last  conference  of 
the  commission,  the  Emperor  had  complied  with  his  request 
for  permission  to  leave,  and,  to  the  credit  of  Charles  in  all  the 
future,  sent  him  a  safe-conduct.  Bearing  the  same  date  as 
the  sentence  of  outlawry  against  him  was  a  treaty  between 
Leo  X.  and  Charles  for  the  reconquest  of  Milan  by  the  latter.* 
The  Pope  was  also  to  abstain  from  complying  with  the  wish 
of  the  Spanish  Estates  that  he  would  soften  the  rigors  of  the 
Inquisition  in  Spain,  a  necessary  instrument  of  Charles's 
tyranny.^ 

'  Respecting  the  impressions  made  by  Luther  on  various  persons,  see  Ranke, 
i.  336  seq.  2  Spalatin,  p.  42. 

^  Robertson,  History  of  Charles  V .,  Prescott's  Appendix  (iii.  482). 

*  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  i.  86. 

*  Ranke,   Deutsche  Geschichte,  i.   329. 


98  THE   REFORMATION 

Leo  X.  had  opposed  the  election  of  Charles,  and  had  made 
great  exertions  to  secure  the  elevation  of  Francis  to  the  imperial 
station.  The  Pope  was  resolved  to  prevent,  if  he  could,  the 
sovereignty  of  Naples  and  the  imperial  office  from  being  in  the 
same  hands.  He  dreaded  the  consequences  to  his  own  states 
and  the  effect  upon  Italy  generally  that  would  result  from  such 
an  accumulation  of  power.  But  after  Charles  had  been  chosen, 
both  the  Emperor  and  Leo  saw  the  advantages  that  would 
attend  upon  their  union,  and  the  damage  that  each  could  inflict 
upon  the  other  in  case  they  persevered  in  their  hostility.  Ac- 
cordingly they  concluded  an  alliance,  a  main  provision  of  which 
was  that  the  parties  were  to  divide  between  them  the  places  to 
be  conquered  by  the  Emperor  in  Lombardy. 

Thus  Luther  was  placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire  and  of 
the  Church.  The  two  great  institutions,  the  two  potentates, 
in  whom  it  had  been  imagined  that  all  authority  on  earth  is 
embodied,  pronounced  against  him.  The  movement  that  had 
enlisted  in  its  support  to  so  great  an  extent  the  literary  and 
political,  as  well  as  the  distinctively  religious,  elements  of 
opposition  to  Rome,  was  condemned  by  Church  and  State.  It 
remained  to  be  seen  whether  the  decree  of  the  Diet  could  be 
carried  into  execution.  This  was  more  difficult,  even  when 
it  was  withstood  by  a  single  German  State,  than  it  was  to  pass 
it.  The  genius  of  Luther  himself,  his  power  as  an  author, 
even  of  polemical  pamphlets,  were  formidable  obstacles.  The 
influence  of  popular  literature  was  a  cooperative  power.  Of 
these,  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  despite  his  unstable  principles,  was 
one  of  the  most  effective  of  the  assailants  of  the  papal  repressive 
policy  and  of  the  Worms  edict  in  particular. 

Now  we  find  Luther  in  the  Wartburg,  the  place  of  refuge 
chosen  for  him  by  the  firm  but  discreet  Elector.  The  Emperor's 
safe-conduct  was  good  for  only  three  weeks.  The  Elector 
arranged  for  his  safety  by  a  plan  of  his  own.  On  the  way  he 
was  interrupted  by  a  company  of  mounted  soldiers.  Luther 
knew  that  he  was  to  be  hidden  for  a  while,  but  knew  not  where. 
In  the  old  Castle  of  Wartburg  in  the  Thuringian  Forest  he 
remained  for  eleven  months.^  It  was  a  very  fine  remark  of 
Melancthon  respecting  the  Elector  to  whose  honest  piety  and 
discerning  spirit  the  Reformation  owes  so  much :    "He  was  not 

'  His  life  there  is  well  sketched  by  Schaff,  Church  History,  vi.  p.  330  seq. 


LUTHER   ON   THE   WARTBURG  99 

one  of  those  who  would  stifle  changes  in  their  very  birth.  He 
was  subject  to  the  will  of  God.  He  read  the  writings  that 
were  put  forth,  and  would  not  permit  any  power  to  crush 
what  he  thought  true."  Luther  studied  the  Scriptures  in  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek.  On  the  Wartburg,  he  speaks  often  of  his 
personal  conflicts  with  the  devil,  with  him  the  source  and  im- 
personation of  evil,  whom  he  held  responsible  for  his  physical 
and  mental  troubles.  With  him  he  conceived  himself  to  be 
frequently  wrestling.  He  was  not  without  recreation.  He 
made  excursions,  admiring  the  beautiful  scenery  and  rejoicing 
in  the  music  of  the  birds.  Here,  though  enduring  much 
physical  pain  consequent  upon  neglect  of  exercise,^  Luther  is 
incessantly  at  work,  sending  forth  controversial  pamphlets, 
writing  letters  of  counsel  and  encouragement  to  his  friends, 
and  laboring  on  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  the  first 
portion  of  that  version  of  the  entire  Scriptures,  which  is  one 
of  his  most  valuable  gifts  to  the  German  people.^  Idiomatic, 
vital  in  every  part,  clothed  in  the  racy  language  of  common  life, 
it  created,  apart  from  its  religious  influence,  an  epoch  in  the 
literary  development  of  the  German  nation.^  What  has  been 
said  in  modern  days  in  depreciation  of  Luther's  translation  of 
the  Bible  into  the  vernacular  is  in  the  main  without  any  just 
ground.  It  is  true  that  there  had  been  translations  of  the  Bible 
into  German  before.  Taken  all  together,  they  may  be  fourteen 
in  number.  But  one  fact  of  capital  importance  is  that  these 
were  renderings  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  inclusive  of  its  errors, 
while  the  basis  of  Luther's  Bible  was  the  original  Scriptures. 
Moreover,  Luther  endeavored  to  interweave  in  his  version  the 
reliable  results  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  scholarship.  Another 
fact  is  that  the  circulation  of  previous  German  translations  was 
small,  especially  among  laymen,  compared  with  the  immense 
as  well  as  early  circulation  of  Luther's  Bible  —  deservedly  styled 
the  classic  of  the  German  people. 

>  He  adverts  to  his  physical  disorders,  De  Wette,  ii.  pp.  2,  17,  29,  33,  50,  59. 

2  On  the  previous  translations  of  the  Bible  into  High  and  Low  German,  and 
on  their  small  circulation,  especially  among  the  laity,  see  Hauck's  Realencyc, 
iii.  59  seq.  See,  also,  Schaff's  Church  History,  vi.  p.  351  seq.  The  "Cam- 
bridge Modern  History,"  vol.  ii.,  The  Reformation,  p.  164  seq. ;  vol.  ii.,  The  Renais- 
sance, p.  639  seq. 

*  On  the  incalculable  advantage  of  Luther's  Bible  as  furnishing  a  "  people's 
book  " —  a  "fundamental  work  for  the  instruction  of  the  people  " —  there  are 
good  remarks  by  Hegel,  Phil,  der  Geschichte ;  Werke,  ix.  503,  504. 


100  THE   REFORMATION 

Troubles  at  Wittenberg  called  him  forth  from  his  retreat. 
An  iconoclastic  movement  had  broken  out  under  the  lead  of 
Carlstadt,  for  the  purpose  of  sweeping  away  in  an  abrupt  and 
violent  manner  rites  that  were  deemed  incongruous  with  the 
new  doctrine.  This  theologian,  not  without  talents  and  learning, 
in  his  career  at  times  supported  Luther,  and  at  intervals  envied 
and  opposed  him.  There  was  a  certain  consistency  in  his  radical 
movement,  and  many  of  the  changes  that  were  attempted  Luther 
and  his  followers  themselves  effected  afterwards.  But  there  was 
an  unhealthy  spirit  of  enthusiasm  and  violence,  of  which  Luther 
saw  the  danger ;  and  the  innovators  were  associating  with  them- 
selves pretended  prophets  from  Zwickau,  who  claimed  a  miracu- 
lous inspiration  and  were  the  apostles  of  a  social  revolution. 
Luther  comprehended  at  a  glance  the  full  import  of  the  crisis. 
Should  his  movement  issue  in  a  sober  and  salutary  reform,  or 
run  out  in  a  wild,  fanatical  sect  ?  It  is  a  mark  of  the  sound  con- 
servatism of  Luther,  or  rather  of  his  profound  Christian  wisdom, 
that  he  desired  no  changes  that  did  not  result  spontaneously 
from  an  insight  into  the  true  principles  of  the  Gospel.  Better, 
he  thought,  to  let  obnoxious  rites  and  ceremonies  remain,  unless 
they  fall  away  from  their  perceived  inconsistency  with  the 
Gospel,  as  the  natural  result  of  incoming  light  and  the  education 
of  conscience.  "If  we,"  he  said,  "are  to  be  iconoclasts  because 
the  Jews  were,  then  like  them  we  must  kill  all  the  unbelievers."  ^ 
He  was  unwilling  to  have  the  attention  of  men  drawn  away 
from  the  central  questions  by  an  excitement  about  points  of 
subordinate  moment ;  and  he  counted  no  changes  to  be  of  any 
value,  however  reasonable  in  themselves,  which  were  brought 
to  pass  by  the  dictation  of  leaders  or  by  any  form  of  external 
pressure.  Seeing  the  full  extent  of  the  danger,  he  resolved, 
whatever  might  befall  himself,  to  return  to  his  flock.  Luther 
never  appears  more  grand  than  at  this  moment.  To  the  pru- 
dent Elector  who  warned  him  against  leaving  his  retreat,  and 
told  him  that  he  could  not  protect  him  against  the  consequences 
of  the  edict  of  Worms,  he  wrote  in  a  lofty  strain  of  courage  and 
faith.  He  went  forth,  he  said,  under  far  higher  protection  than 
that  of  the  Elector.  This  was  a  cause  not  to  be  aided  or  directed 
by  the  sword.  He  who  has  most  faith  will  be  of  most  use. 
"Since  I  now  perceive,"  he  wrote,  "that  your  Electoral  Grace 

>  De  Wctto,  ii.  .54S. 


LUTHER   AND   THE   ICONOCLASTS  101 

is  still  very  weak  in  faith,  I  can  by  no  means  regard  your  Elec- 
toral Highness  as  the  man  who  is  able  to  shield  or  save  me."  * 
If  he  had  as  pressing  business  at  Leipsic,  he  said,  as  he  had  at 
Wittenberg,  he  would  ride  in  there  if  it  rained  Duke  Georges 
nine  days !  ^  Arriving  at  Wittenberg,  he  entered  the  pulpit  on 
the  following  Sunday,  and  by  his  persuasive  eloquence  in  a 
series  of  eight  discourses  put  an  end  to  the  formidable  disturb- 
ance (1522). 

Restored  to  Wittenberg,  Luther  continued  his  herculean 
labors  as  a  preacher,  teacher,  and  author.  Commentaries, 
tracts,  letters  upon  all  the  various  themes  on  which  he  was  daily 
consulted  or  on  which  he  felt  impelled  to  speak,  continually 
flowed  from  his  pen.  In  a  single  year  he  put  forth  not  less  than 
one  hundred  and  eighty-three  publications.' 

Meantime  the  Council  of  Regency,  who  managed  the  govern- 
ment in  the  absence  of  the  Emperor,  steadily  dQclined  to  g-d.opt 
measures  for  the  extirpation  of  the  Lathefa)is.  The  giound 
was  taken  that  the  religious  movemeniwas  too  iryiich  a  matter 
of  conscience ;  it  had  taken  root  in  the  minds-  of  tde  -greai  a 
number  to  allow  of  its  suppression  by  force.  An  attempt  to 
do  so  would  breed  disturbances  of  a  dangerous  character.  The 
drift  of  feeling  through  the  nation  was  unmistakably  in  the 
direction  of  reform.  Adrian  VI.,  who  was  a  man  of  strict  morals, 
the  successor  of  Leo  X.,  found  himself  unable  to  remedy  the 
abuses  to  which  he  attributed  the  Lutheran  movement.  The 
demand  which  he  made  by  his  legate  at  the  Diet  of  Nuremberg, 
in  1522,  that  the  decree  against  Luther  should  be  enforced,  was 
met  by  the  presentation  of  a  list  of  a  hundred  grievances  of 
which  the  Diet  had  to  complain  to  the  Roman  See.  His  suc- 
cessor, Clement  VII.,  in  whom  the  old  spirit  of  worldliness,  after 
the  brief  interval  of  Adrian's  reign,  was  reinstated  in  the  papal 
chair,  fared  little  better  at  the  Diet  of  Nuremberg,  in  1524,  when, 
through  his  legate  Campeggio,  he  demanded  the  unconditional 
suppression  of  the  Lutheran  heresy.  The  Pope  and  the  Em- 
peror could  obtain    no  more  than    an  indefinite  engagement  to 

1  De  Wette,  ii.  139.  *  Ihid.,  ii.  140. 

^  He  says:  "Sum  certe  velocis  mentis  et  promtse  memorise  e  qua  mihi  fluit, 
quum  promatur,  quicquid  scribo."  Letter  to  Spalatin  (Feb.  3,  1520) ;  De  Wette, 
i.  405.  Nine  years  later  he  writes:  "Sic  obruor  quotidie  Uteris,  ut  mensa,  scam 
na,  scabella,  pulpita,  fenestrae,  arcae,  asseres,  et  omnia  plena  jaceant  literis  quaes- 
tionibus,  querelis,  petitionibus,  etc.  In  me  ruit  tota  moles  ecclesiastica  et  po- 
litica,"  etc.     Letter  to  Wenc.  Link.  (June  20,  1529) ;    De  Wette,  ill.  472. 


102  The  reformation 

observe  the  Worms  decree,  "  as  far  as  possible."  This  action  was 
equivalent  to  remanding  the  subject  to  the  several  princes 
within  their  respective  territories.  It  was  coupled  with  a  refer- 
ence of  disputed  matters  to  a  general  council,  and  with  a  resolu- 
tion to  take  up  the  hundred  complaints  at  the  next  diet.  A 
majority  could  not  be  obtained  against  the  Lutherans  and  in 
favor  of  the  coercive  measures  demanded  by  the  Pope  and  by 
Charles.  And  the  movement  of  reform  was  spreading  in  every 
part  of  Germany. 

This  aspect  of  affairs  moved  the  papal  party  to  the  adoption 
of  active  measures  to  turn  the  scale  on  the  other  side  —  meas- 
ures which  began  the  division  of  Germany.  Up  to  this  point 
no  division  had  occurred.  The  nation  had  moved  as  one  body : 
it  had  refused  to  suppress  the  new  opinions.  Now  strenuous 
efforts  were  put  forth  to  combine  the  Catholics  into  a  compact 
party  for  mutual  aid  a^id  defense.  At  Ratisbon  an  alliance  of 
this  character' was  formed  by  the  Catholic  princes  and  bishops 
of -South  Germany,  by- the' terms  of  which  the  Wittenberg  heresy 
wafc  to  be  exciludedfrbm  their  dominions,  and  they  were  to  help 
each  other  in  their  common  dangers.  At  the  Diet  of  Nurem- 
berg it  had  been  determined  to  hold  an  assembly  shortly  after 
at  Spires  for  the  regulation  of  ecclesiastical  affairs.  The  princes 
were  to  procure  beforehand  from  their  councilors  and  scholars 
a  statement  of  the  points  in  dispute.  The  grievances  of  the 
nation  were  to  be  set  forth,  and  remedies  were  to  be  sought  for 
them.  The  nation  was  to  deliberate  and  act  on  the  great  mat- 
ter of  religious  reform.  The  prospect  was  that  the  evangelical 
party  would  be  in  the  majority.  The  papal  court  saw  the 
danger  that  was  involved  in  an  assembly  gathered  for  such 
a  purpose,  and  determined  to  prevent  the  meeting.  At  this 
moment  war  was  breaking  out  between  Charles  and  Francis. 
Charles  had  no  inclination  to  offend  the  Pope.  He  forbade  the 
assembly  at  Spires  and,  by  letters  addressed  to  the  princes  indi- 
vidually, endeavored  to  drive  them  into  the  execution  of  the 
edict  of  Worms.  In  consequence  of  these  threatening  move- 
ments, the  Elector  of  Saxony  and  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  en- 
tered into  the  defensive  league  of  Torgau,  in  which  they  were 
joined  by  several  Protestant  communities.  The  battle  of  Pavia 
and  the  capture  of  Francis  I.  were  events  that  appeared  to  be 
fraught  with  peril  to  the  Protestant  cause.    In  the  Peace  of 


THE   PROTEST   AT   SPIRES  103 

Madrid  (January  14,  1526)  both  sovereigns  avowed  the  deter- 
mination to  suppress  heresy.  But  the  dangerous  preponderance 
obtained  by  the  Emperor  created  an  alarm  throughout  Europe; 
and  the  release  of  Francis  was  followed  by  the  organization  of 
a  confederacy  against  Charles,  of  which  Clement  was  the  lead- 
ing promoter.  This  changed  the  imperial  policy  in  reference  to 
the  Lutherans.  The  Diet  of  Spires  in  1526  unanimously  re- 
solved that,  until  the  meeting  of  a  general  council,  every  state 
should  act  in  regard  to  the  edict  of  Worms  as  it  might  answer 
to  God  and  his  imperial  majesty.  Once  more  Germany  refused 
to  stifle  the  Reformation,  and  adopted  the  principle  that  each 
of  the  component  parts  of  the  Empire  should  be  left  free  to  act 
according  to  its  own  will.  It  was  a  measure  of  the  highest  im- 
portance to  the  cause  of  Protestantism.  It  is  a  great  landmark 
in  the  history  of  the  German  Reformation.  The  war  of  the 
Emperor  and  the  Pope  involved  the  necessity  of  tolerating  the 
Lutherans. 

In  1527,  an  imperial  army,  composed  largely  of  Lutheran 
infantry,  captured  and  sacked  the  city  of  Rome.  For  several 
months  the  Pope  was  held  a  prisoner.  For  a  number  of  years 
the  position  of  Charles,  with  respect  to  France  and  the  Pope, 
and  the  fear  of  Turkish  invasion,  had  operated  to  embolden 
and  greatly  strengthen  the  cause  of  Luther.  But  now  that  the 
Emperor  had  gained  a  complete  victory  in  Italy,  the  Catholic 
party  revived  its  policy  of  repression ;  and  at  the  Diet  of  Spires, 
in  1529,  a  majority  was  obtained  for  an  edict  virtually  forbidding 
the  progress  of  the  Reformation  in  the  states  which  had  not 
accepted  it,  at  the  same  time  that  liberty  was  given  to  the  ad- 
herents of  the  old  confession  in  the  reformed  states  to  celebrate 
their  rites  with  freedom.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  here  the 
methods  by  which  a  reversal  of  the  national  policy  was  thus 
procured.  The  decisive  circumstance  was  that  Charles  V.,  in 
consequence  of  his  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  Spanish  Catholi- 
cism, instead  of  putting  himself  at  the  head  of  the  great  religious 
and  national  movement  in  Germany,  chose  to  maintain  the 
ancient  union  of  the  Empire  with  the  Papacy.  The  protest 
against  the  proceeding  of  the  Diet,  which  gave  the  name  of 
Protestants  to  the  reforming  party,  and  the  appeal  to  the  Em- 
peror, to  a  general  or  a  German  council,  and  to  all  impartial 
Christian  judges,  was  signed  by  John,  the  Elector  of  Saxony, 


104  THE   REFORMATION 

the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg,  the  Duke  of  Brunswick-Liine- 
burg,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  the  Prince  of  Anhalt;  to  whom 
were  united  fourteen  cities,  among  which  were  Nuremberg, 
Strasburg,  and  Constance. 

The  party  of  reform  did  not  consider  itself  bound  by  the 
action  of  the  Diet,  not  only  because  its  edict  looked  to  compul- 
sion in  a  matter  that  should  be  left  to  the  conscience,  but  also 
because  it  overthrew  a  policy  which  had  been  solemnly  estab- 
lished ;  a  policy  on  the  faith  of  which  the  princes  and  cities  that 
were  favorable  to  the  evangelical  cause  had  proceeded  in  shaping 
their  religious  polity  and  worship.  The  efforts  made,  especially 
by  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  to  combine  the  supporters  of  the 
Reformation  in  a  defensive  league,  were  chilled  by  the  opposi- 
tion of  Luther  to  measures  that  looked  to  a  war  with  the 
Emperor,  and  still  more  prevented  from  being  successful  by  his 
determined  unwillingness  to  unite  with  the  Swiss,  on  account 
of  what  he  considered  their  heretical  doctrine  of  the  sacrament. 
Luther  and  his  associates  were  imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  obli- 
gation of  the  subject  to  the  powers  that  be  and  with  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  Empire.  The  course  for  the  Christian  to  take,  in 
their  judgment,  was  that  of  passive  obedience.  They  likewise 
deemed  it  an  unlawful  thing  to  join  with  errorists  —  with  men 
who  rejected  material  parts  of  Christian  truth.  However  open 
to  criticism  the  position  of  the  Saxon  reformers  was  on  both  of 
these  points,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  their  general  motive 
was  the  sublime  disregard  of  mere  expediency,  which  had  char- 
acterized, and,  we  may  add,  had  ennobled  their  movement  at 
every  step. 

In  this  state  of  things,  the  Emperor,  flushed  with  success, 
met  the  representatives  of  the  Empire  in  1530,  at  the  memorable 
Diet  of  Augsburg.  The  inconvenience  and  danger  of  keeping 
the  Pope  in  captivity  had  caused  Charles  to  wish  for  an  accom- 
modation with  him.  The  desire  of  Clement  VII.,  a  self-seeking 
politician,  to  have  Florence  restored  to  his  family,  in  connection 
with  other  less  influential  considerations,  inspired  him  with  a 
like  feeling ;  so  that  amity  was  reestablished.  At  the  same  time 
the  Peace  of  Cambray  terminated  for  a  time  the  conflict  with 
France.  The  Emperor  was  freed  from  the  embarrassments 
which  had  hindered  him  from  putting  forth  determined  en- 
,  deavors  to  restore  the  unity  of  the  Church.     He  had  been 


THE   DIET   OF   AUGSBURG  105 

crowned  at  Bologna,  and  was  filled  with  a  sense  of  his  respon- 
sibility at  the  head  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  the  guardian 
of  Christianity  and  of  the  Church.  He  was  surrounded  by  the 
Spanish  nobility  as  well  as  by  the  princes  and  representatives 
of  the  Empire.  The  design  was  to  persuade,  and,  if  this  should 
prove  impracticable,  to  overawe  and  coerce  the  Protestants 
into  an  abandonment  of  their  cause.  A  faith  and  heroism  less 
steadfast  would  have  yielded  to  the  tremendous  pressure  that 
was  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  It  was  not  considered  wise  or 
safe  for  Luther  to  go  to  Augsburg.  He  was  left  behind  in  the 
castle  of  Coburg,  within  the  limits  of  the  Elector's  dominion, 
but  he  held  frequent  communication  with  the  Saxon  theologians 
who  attended  the  Elector.  The  celebrated  Confession,  drawn 
up  by  Melancthon,  in  a  conciliatory  spirit,  but  clearly  defining 
the  essential  tenets  of  Protestantism  —  a  creed  w^hich  has  ob- 
tained more  currency  and  respect  than  any  other  Protestant 
symbol  —  was  read  to  the  Assembly.  The  reply,  composed  by 
Eck  and  other  Catholic  theologians,  by  order  of  the  Emperor, 
was  also  presented.  Then  followed  efforts  at  compromise,  in 
which  Melancthon  bore  a  prominent  part,  and  showed  a  willing- 
ness to  concede  everything  but  that  which  was  deemed  most 
vital.  These  efforts  fell  to  the  ground.  They  could  invent  no 
formulas  on  which  they  could  agree,  upon  the  merit  of  works, 
penance,  and  the  invocation  of  saints.  The  elaborate  and  able 
Apology  by  Melancthon,  in  defense  of  the  Confession,  was  not 
heard,  but  was  published  by  the  author.  It  acquired  a  place 
among  the  Lutheran  creeds.  The  majority  of  the  Diet  enjoined 
the  restoration  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  institutions,  allowing  the 
Protestants  time  for  reflection  until  the  10th  of  November  of 
the  following  year;  after  which,  it  was  implied,  coercion  would 
be  adopted.  Nothing  in  the  history  of  the  Reformation  is  more 
pathetic  than  the  conduct  of  the  Elector  John  at  Augsburg, 
who,  in  the  full  prospect  of  the  ruin  of  every  earthly  interest, 
and  not  without  the  deepest  sensibility  from  his  attachment 
to  the  Emperor  and  to  the  peace  of  the  Empire,  nevertheless 
resolved  to  stand  by  "the  imperishable  Word  of  God,"  The 
Reformers  were  willing  to  release  him  from  all  obligation  to  pro- 
tect them,  to  take  whatever  lot  Providence  might  send  upon 
them ;  but  this  true-hearted  prince  refused  to  compromise  in  the 
least  his  sacred  convictions.* 

*  John  th^  Constant  succeeded  his  brother,  Frederick  the  Wise,  in  1525, 


106  THE  REFORMATION 

The  letters  written  by  Luther  during  the  sessions  of  the  Diet 
exhibit  in  bold  relief  the  noblest  and  most  attractive  sides  of 
his  character.  The  fine  mingling  of  jest  and  earnest,  the  grand 
elevation  of  his  faith,  his  serene,  dauntless  courage,  and  his  broad 
sagacity,  are  never  more  striking.  He  takes  time  to  write  a 
charming  letter  to  his  little  son.^  To  his  friends  at  Augsburg  he 
sportively  writes  that  in  the  flock  of  crows  and  rooks  hurrying 
to  and  fro,  and  screaming  in  a  thicket  before  his  window,  he  finds 
another  Diet,  with  its  dukes  and  lords,  which  quite  resembles 
the  imperial  assembly.  "They  care  not  for  large  halls  and  pal- 
aces, for  their  hall  is  roofed  by  the  beautiful,  wide-spreading 
sky,  its  floor  is  simple  turf,  its  tables  are  pretty  green  branches, 
and  its  walls  are  as  wide  as  the  world's  end."^  He  will  build 
there,  in  his  seclusion,  three  tabernacles,  one  for  the  prophets, 
one  for  the  Psalter,  and  another  for  iEsop;  for  not  only  will 
he  expound  the  Scriptures,  he  will  translate  -^Esop,  too,  for  the 
instruction  of  his  Germans.^  Why  had  Master  Joachim  twice 
written  to  him  in  Greek?  He  would  reply  in  Turkish,  so  that 
Master  Joachim  might  also  read  what  he  could  not  understand.^ 
He  sets  a  trap  to  decoy  a  fastidious  musical  critic  into  an  approval 
of  a  piece  which  Luther  had  himself  partly  composed,  but  which 
he  contrives  to  have  passed  off  as  a  performance  at  Augsburg, 
to  celebrate  the  entrance  of  Charles  and  Ferdinand.^  Suffering 
himself  from  prostration  of  strength  and  from  a  thundering  in 
the  head,  which  forced  him  to  lay  down  his  books  for  days,  he 
enjoins  Melancthon  to  observe  the  rules  for  the  care  of  his  "little 
body."^  He  exhorts  the  anxious  Philip  to  the  exercise  of  greater 
faith.  If  Moses  had  resolved  to  know  just  how  he  was  to  escape 
from  the  army  of  Pharaoh,  Israel  would  have  been  in  Egypt 
to-day.'  Let  Philip  cease  to  be  rector  mundi  and  let  the  Lord 
govern.^  In  bearing  private  griefs  and  afflictions,  Philip  was 
the  stronger,  but  the  opposite  is  true,  said  Luther,  of  those  which 
are  of  a  public  nature.^  If  we  fafl,  he  says,  Christ  falls,  and  I 
prefer  to  fall  with  Christ  than  stand  with  Csesar,^*^    He  rejoices 

»  De  Wette,  iv.  41. 

*  Ibid.,  iv.  4,  8,  13.  The  letter  is  dated  from  "the  Diet  of  Grain-Peckers," 
April  28,  1530.  Writing  to  Spalatin  a  few  days  after  in  the  same  strain,  he 
adds:  "Yet  it  is  in  seriousness  and  by  compulsion  that  I  jest,  that  I  may  repel 
the  reflections  which  rush  in  upon  me,  if  indeed  I  may  repel  them."  De  Wette, 
iv.   14. 

»  IbU.,  iv.   2.  «  Ihid.  '  Ihid.,  p.  52.  »  /ft^^.^  p.  52. 

*  Ihid.,  iv.  16.  6  Ihid.,  p.  36.  »  Ihid.,  p.  55.  i"  Ibid.,  p.  63. 


LUTHER'S   FAITH   AND   COURAGE  107 

to  have  lived  to  have  the  Confession  read  before  the  Empire/ 
He  bids  Melancthon,  if  the  cause  is  unjust,  to  abandon  it;  but 
if  it  be  just,  to  cast  away  his  fears.  He  is  full  of  that  sublime 
confidence  which  rang  out  in  the  most  popular  of  his  hymns, 
"the  Marseillaise  of  the  Reformation"  — 

"Ein  fester  Burg  ist  unser  Gott"  — 

Three  hours  in  the  day  he  spent  in  prayer.^  He  writes  to  the 
Elector's  anxious  Chancellor :  '*  I  have  lately  seen  two  wonders, 
—  first,  as  I  looked  out  of  the  window,  I  saw  the  stars  in  the 
heavens  and  the  entire  beautiful  vault  which  God  has  raised; 
yet  the  heavens  fell  not,  and  the  vault  still  stands  firm.  Now 
some  would  be  glad  to  find  the  pillars  that  sustain  it,  and  grasp 
and  feel  them."  "The  other  was:  I  saw  great  thick  clouds 
hanging  above  us  with  such  weight,  that  they  might  be  com- 
pared to  a  great  sea;  and  yet  I  saw  no  ground  on  which  they 
rested  and  no  vessel  wherein  they  were  contained;  yet  they 
did  not  fall  upon  us,  but  saluted  us  with  a  harsh  look  and  fled 
away.  As  they  pass  away,  a  rainbow  shines  forth  on  the  ground 
and  on  our  roof."  ^  "All  things,"  he  writes  in  another  place, 
"are  in  the  hands  of  God,  who  can  cover  the  sky  with  clouds  and 
brighten  it  again  in  a  moment."  *  It  is  painful  to  him  that  God's 
Word  must  be  so  silent  at  Augsburg;  for  the  Protestants  were 
not  allowed  to  preach.^  He  had  a  settled  distrust  of  Campeggio 
and  the  other  Italians:  "where  an  Italian  is  good,  he  is  most 
good,"  but  to  find  such  an  one  is  as  hard  as  to  find  a  black  swan. 
He  went  along  with  Melancthon  in  a  willingness  to  make  con- 
cessions, provided  the  evangelical  doctrine  and  freedom  in  preach- 

»  De  Wette,  p.  71. 

*  Veit  Dietrich,  who  was  with  him,  wrote  to  Melancthon:  "I  cannot  suffi- 
ciently wonder  at  this  man's  admirable  steadfastness,  cheerful  courage,  faith,  and 
hope,  in  so  doleful  a  time.  He  nourishes  these  tempers,  however,  by  studious, 
uninterrupted  meditation  of  God's  Word.  Not  a  day  passes  when  he  does  not 
spend  three  hours,  and  those  best  suited  for  study,  in  prayer.  Once  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  hear  him  pray.  Good  God,  what  a  faith  appeared  in  his  words ! 
He  prayed  with  such  reverence  that  one  saw  he  was  talking  with  God,  and  yet 
with  such  faith  and  hope  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  was  talking  with  a  father  and 
a  friend.  'I  know,'  he  said,  'that  Thou  art  our  God  and  Father.  So  I  am  certain 
Thou  wilt  bring  to  shame  the  persecutors  of  Thy  children.  If  Thou  doest  it  not, 
the  hazard  is  Thine  as  well  as  ours.  In  truth,  the  whole  matter  is  Thine  own ; 
we  have  been  only  compelled  to  lay  hands  on  it;  Thou  mayst  then  guard,'"  &c. 
Corpus  Ref.,  ii.   159. 

*  De  Wette,  iv.  128.  At  an  earlier  day,  on  the  occasion  of  his  interview  with 
Cajetan,  in  reply  to  the  question  where  he  would  stand  if  the  Elector  should  not 
support  him,  he  answered,    "Unter  dem  weiten  Himmel!" 

*  De  Wette,   iv.    166.  «  /^^^^   p    jyg 


108  THE   REFORMATION 

ing  it  were  not  sacrificed.  He  had  no  suspicion  of  Philip,  as 
some  had.  There  were  many  ceremonies,  which  were  trifles 
—  leviculcB  —  not  worth  disputing  about.  Yet  it  did  not  belong 
to  the  magistrate  to  dictate  to  the  Church  in  these  points.^  He 
would  go  so  far,  though  not  without  reluctance,  as  to  allow 
bishops  to  continue,  but  would  permit  no  subjection  to  the 
Papacy.  But  Luther  had  no  belief  in  the  possibility  of  a  com- 
promise or  reconciliation.  There  was  a  radical  antagonism  that 
could  not  be  bridged  over.  There  could  be  no  agreement  in 
doctrine;  political  peace  alone  was  to  be  aimed  at  and  hoped 
for.^  Hence  he  rejoiced  when  the  perilous  negotiations  between 
the  opposing  committees  of  theologians  were  brought  to  an 
end. 

There  are  several  occurrences  not  yet  noticed,  which  took 
place  in  the  interval  between  the  Diets  of  Worms  and  of  Augs- 
burg, and  which  are  of  marked  importance  both  in  their  bearing 
on  the  Reformation,  and  as  illustrating  the  personal  character 
of  Luther. 

One  of  these  events  was  his  marriage,  in  1525,  to  Catharine 
von  Bora.  He  resolved  upon  this  measure,  as  we  learn  from 
himself,  partly  because  he  expected  that  his  life  would  not  con- 
tinue long,  and  he  was  determined  to  leave,  in  the  most  impres- 
sive form,  his  testimony  against  the  Romish  law  of  celibacy. 
Another  motive  was  a  yearning  for  the  happiness  of  domestic 
life,  which  his  parents,  who  had  embraced  the  new  faith,  encour- 
aged. The  scandal  that  his  marriage  caused,  first  among  his 
own  friends  and  then  the  world  over,  hardly  fell  short  of  that 
occasioned  by  the  posting  of  his  theses.  The  example  of  Luther 
was  followed  by  many  of  his  associates,  which  gave  rise  to  the 
characteristic  jest  of  Erasmus,  that  what  had  been  called  a 
tragedy  seemed  to  be  a  comedy,  at  it  came  out  in  a  marriage. 
The  marriage  of  an  apostate  monk  with  a  runaway  nun  be- 
tokened, in  the  view  of  the  superstitious,  the  coming  of  Anti- 
christ as  the  fruit  of  the  unhallowed  union.  But  it  was  one  of 
those  bold  steps,  characteristic  of  Luther,  which,  in  the  long 
run,  proved  of  advantage  to  his  cause.  It  gave  him  the  solace 
of  home,  in  the  intense  excitement  and  prodigious  labors  in  which 
he  was  immersed  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  There,  with  music, 
and  song,  and  frolics  with  his  children,  in  the  circle  of  his  friends, 

>  Dc  Wettc,  iv.  210,  lOa.  ^  Ibid.,    xv.    110. 


LUTHER'S   VEHEMENCE  100 

he  poured  out  his  humor  and  kindly  feeling  without  stint.  His 
diverting  letters  to  his  wife  —  his  "Mistress  Kate,"  "Doctoress 
Luther,"  as  he  styled  her  —  and  the  tender  expressions  of  his 
grief  at  the  death  of  his  children  could  ill  be  spared  from  the 
records  of  this  deep-hearted  man/ 

Among  these  events  are  his  controversies  with  King  Henry 
VIII.  and  with  Erasmus.  From  the  outset  it  was  evident  that 
Luther  must  either  give  up  his  cause  or  contend  for  it  against 
countless  adversaries.  His  polemical  writings  are  therefore 
quite  numerous,  and  it  shows  the  amplitude  of  his  mind  that  he 
did  not  allow  himself  to  be  so  far  absorbed  in  this  sort  of  work 
as  to  neglect  more  positive  labors,  through  his  Bible,  catechisms, 
sermons,  tracts,  for  the  building  up  of  the  Church.  He  had  to 
fight  his  own  friends  when  they  swerved  from  the  truth,  as  did 
Carlstadt,  and  also  Agricola,  who  set  up  a  form  of  Antinomian- 
ism.  But  his  principal  Hterary  battles  were  with  Henry  VIII. 
and  with  Erasmus.  The  intemperance  of  Luther's  language  has 
been  since,  as  it  was  then,  a  subject  of  frequent  censure.  It 
must  be  remembered,  however,  what  a  tempest  of  denunciation 
fell  upon  him ;  how  he  stood  for  all  his  hfe  a  mark  for  the  piti- 
less hostility  of  a  great  part  of  the  world.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered, too,  that  for  a  time  he  stood  alone,  and  everything 
depended  on  his  constancy,  determination,  and  dauntless  zeal 
in  the  maintenance  of  his  cause.  Had  he  wavered,  everything 
would  have  been  lost.  And  mildness  of  language,  he  said,  was 
not  his  gift ;  he  could  not  tread  so  softly  and  lightly  as  Melanc- 
thon.^  His  convictions  were  too  intense  to  admit  of  an  expres- 
sion of  them  in  any  but  the  strongest  language;  in  words  that 
were  blows.  Moreover,  he  believed  it  to  be  a  sound  and  wise 
policy  to  cast  aside  reserve  and  to  speak  out,  in  the  most 
unsparing  manner,  the  sentiments  of  his  soul.  It  was  not  a 
disease  to  be  cured  by  a  palliative.^  The  formidable  enemy 
against  which  he  was  waging  war,  was  rendered  more  arrogant 
and  exacting  by  every  act  of  deference  shown  him,  and  by  every 

'  See,  for  example,  the  letter  (to  Nic.  Hausmann),  August  5,  1528,  after  the 
death  of  his  daughter.  De  Wette,  iii.  364.  A  complete  account  of  Luther's 
domestic  character  and  relations  is  given  by  F.  G.  Hofman,  Katharina  von  Bora, 
Oder  Dr.  Martin  Luther  als  Gatte  %md  Voter  (Leipsic,  1845).  There  is  much  of  in- 
terest on  the  same  subject,  in  a  quaint  little  book,  D.  Martin  Luther's  Zeitver- 
kurzungzn,  von  M.  Johann  Nicolaus  Anton  (Leipsic,  1804). 

2  Letter  to  the  Elector  John,  De  Wette,  iv.  17. 

3  "Aut  ergo  desperandum  est  de  pace  et  trannuillitate  hujus  rei,  aut  verbum 
negandum  est."     Letter  to  Spalatin  (February,  1520).     De  Wette,  i.  425. 


110  THE   REFORMATION 

concession.  There  was  no  middle  course  to  be  pursued.^  There 
must  be  either  surrender,  or  open,  uncompromising  war.  Be- 
sides, in  his  study  of  the  Bible,  he  conceived  himself  to  find  a 
warrant  for  all  his  hard  language,  in  the  course  pursued  by  the 
prophets,  by  Christ,  and  by  Paul.^  He  felt  that  he  stood  face 
to  face  with  the  same  Pharisaical  theology  and  ethics  that  called 
forth  the  terrible  denunciations  recorded  in  the  New  Testament. 
If  it  was  proper  to  call  things  by  their  right  names  then,  it  was 
proper  now.  He  had  been  hampered  at  the  beginning,  he  came 
to  think,  by  a  false  humihty,  by  a  hngering  reverence  for  an 
authority  that  deserved  no  reverence.  He  regretted  that  at 
Worms  he  had  not  taken  a  different  tone ;  that  he  had  said  any- 
thing about  retracting  in  case  he  could  be  convinced  of  his  error. 
He  would  cast  all  such  quahfications  and  cowardly  scruples  to 
the  winds ;  he  would  stand  by  what  he  knew  to  be  truth,  without 
any  timid  respect  for  its  adversaries.^  These  considerations  are 
not  without  weight.  A  man  whose  natural  weapon  is  a  battle 
ax  must  not  be  rebuked  for  not  handling  a  rapier.  There  is 
sometimes  work  to  be  done  which  the  Hghter  and  more  graceful 
weapon  could  never  accomplish.  At  the  same  time,  with  all 
Luther's  tenderness  of  feehng,  with  his  fine  and  even  poetic 
sensibiUty,  there  was  associated  a  vein  of  coarseness,  a  plebeian 
vehemence  in  speech,  which,  when  he  was  goaded  by  opposition, 
engendered  scurrility. 

The  book  of  Henry  VIII.  was  directed  against  Luther's  work 
on  the  sacraments,  "The  Babylonian  Captivity."  *  It  is  marked 
by  extreme  haughtiness  toward  Luther,  and  is  hardly  less  vitu- 
perative than  the  Reformer's  famous  reply.  Luther  was  the 
hound  who  had  brought  up  heresies  anew  out  of  hell;  princes 
would  combine  to  burn  him  and  his  books  together.     It  was, 

'  "Mein  Handel  ist  nicht  ein  Mittelhandel,  der  etwas  weichen  oder  nach- 
geben,  oder  sich  unterlassen  soil,  wie  ich  Narr  bisher  gethan  habe."  De  Wette, 
ii.  244. 

^  He  gives  reasons  for  his  vehemence  in  a  letter  to  Wenceslaus  Link  (August 
19,  1520),  De  Wette,  i.  479.  Among  other  things  he  says:  "Video  enim  ea, 
quae  nostro  sseculo  tractantur,  mox  cadere  in  oblivionem,  nemine  ea  curante." 
He  says  elsewhere  that  love  and  severity  are  compatible.  De  Wette,  ii.  212. 
See,  also,  pp.  236,  243. 

*  Hallam  censures  Luther  for  "bellowing  in  bad  Latin."  But  it  was  a  cry 
with  which  all  Europe  rang  "from  side  to  side."  Had  he  been  a  man  of  the 
temperament  of  Hallam,  where  would  have  been  the  Reformation?  The  Eras- 
mians  can  seldom  appreciate,  much  less  look  with  complacency  upon,  Luther. 

*  Adsertio  Septem  Sacramentorum  adversus  Martinum  Lutherum  (1521).  It  is 
published  in  a  German  translation  in  Walch's  ed.  of  Luther's  Writings. 


LUTHER,   HENRY    VIII.,    AND   ERASMUS  111 

throughout,  an  appeal  to  authority;  Luther  had  audaciously 
presumed  to  set  himself  against  popes  and  doctors  without 
number.  The  impression  of  Henry's  book  itself  wholly  depended 
on  the  fact  that  its  author  sat  on  a  throne.  Luther  probably 
meant  to  neutralize  this  impression  by  bemiring  the  purple  of 
this  regal  disputant  who  had  stepped  forth,  with  his  crown  on 
his  head,  into  the  arena  of  theological  debate,  to  win  from  the 
Pope,  whom  he  obsequiously  flattered,  the  title  of  Defender 
of  the  Faith.  Subsequently,  when  Henry  was  reputed  to  be 
favorable  to  the  Protestant  cause,  at  the  earnest  solicitation 
of  King  Christian  IL  of  Denmark  and  of  other  friends,  Luther 
wrote  to  the  King  a  humble  apology  for  the  violence  of  his  lan- 
guage —  making  no  withdrawal,  however,  of  any  portion  of  his 
doctrine.  In  composing  this  apologetic  letter  he  was  carried 
away,  he  says,  by  the  promptings  of  others,  to  do  what  of 
himself  he  would  never  have  done.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the 
ungenerous  reception  and  use  of  the  letter  by  Henry,  Luther  did 
not  regret  that  he  had  written  it,  as  he  did  not  regret  the  sending 
of  a  similar  epistle  to  Duke  George.  As  far  as  his  own  person 
was  concerned,  he  said,  he  was  willing  to  humble  himself  to  a 
child;  his  doctrine  he  would  not  compromise.  But  such  expe- 
riences confirmed  him  in  the  feeling,  which  he  had  entertained 
before,  that  humiUty  was  thrown  away ;  that  here  was  a  mortal 
conflict,  in  which  gentle  words  were  misinterpreted,  and  there- 
fore, wasted,  and  into  which  it  was  worse  than  folly  to  enter 
with  his  hands  tied.  Under  such  circumstances,  a  man  must 
neither  think  of  retreat  nor  of  the  possibihty  of  placating  the 
foe.  It  was  natural  that  his  experiences  of  controversy,  in  their 
action  on  a  temper  naturally  combative,  should  contribute  to 
carry  Luther  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  charity,  as  well  as  of 
civility,  in  his  treatment  of  the  Sacramentarians,  the  adherents 
of  Zwingli.  Of  this  matter,  where  his  intemperance  was  more 
mischievous,  we  shall  speak  in  another  place. 

As  to  Erasmus  and  the  Saxon  Reformers,  there  was  an  ear- 
nest wish  on  both  sides  that  he  should  not  take  part  against  them. 
Luther,  and  Melancthon  still  more,  respected  him  as  the  patri- 
arch of  letters,  the  restorer  of  the  languages,  and  the  effective 
antagonist  of  fanaticism  and  superstition.  When  Luther  pub- 
lished his  work  on  the  Galatians,  he  regretted  that  Erasmus 
had  not  put  forth  a  book  on  the  same  subject,  which  would  have 


112  THE   REFORMATION 

rendered  his  own  unnecessary/  Erasmus,  in  turn,  could  not 
but  applaud  the  first  movement  of  Luther.  His  love  of  litera- 
ture, not  less  than  his  religious  predilections,  would  incline  him 
strongly  to  the  Lutheran  side.  The  Wittenberg  theologians 
were  earnest  champions  of  the  cause  of  learning.  But  the  caution 
of  Erasmus  was  manifest  from  the  beginning.  He  avoided  the 
need  of  committing  himself  by  professing  to  his  various  corre- 
spondents that  he  had  not  read  the  books  of  Luther.  He  told 
the  Elector  of  Saxony,  in  an  interview  at  Cologne,  shortly  before 
the  Diet  of  Worms,  that  the  two  great  offenses  of  Luther  were 
that  he  had  touched  the  crown  of  the  Pope  and  the  bellies  of 
the  monks.  The  expressions  of  sympathy  with  the  Wittenberg 
movement  that  escaped  him,  notwithstanding  his  prudence,  or 
which  reached  the  ear  of  the  pubUc  through  the  unauthorized 
pubUcation  of  his  letters,  kept  him  busy  in  allaying  the  suspi- 
cions and  anxieties  of  Catholic  friends  and  patrons.  But  Luther 
and  Erasmus  were  utterly  diverse  from  one  another  in  character ; 
and  "such  unhkes,"  as  Coleridge  has  said,  "end  in  dislikes." 
Erasmus,  it  has  been  remarked  with  truth,  lacked  depth  and 
fervor  of  rehgious  convictions.  He  was  a  typical  latitudinarian, 
in  the  cast  of  his  mind.^  His  absorbing  passion  was  for  litera- 
ture. He  could  not  conceive  how  any  man  of  taste  could  prefer 
Augustine  to  Jerome,  while  Luther  could  not  see  how  any  man 
that  loved  the  Gospel  could  fail  to  set  Augustine,  with  his  Uttle 
Greek  and  less  Hebrew,  infinitely  above  Jerome.^  As  the  con- 
flict which  Luther  had  excited  grew  warm,  attention  was  inevi- 
tably drawn  away  from  the  pursuit  of  letters  and  absorbed  in 
theological  inquiry  and  controversy;  and  this  change  Erasmus 
deplored.  The  heat  which  Luther  manifested  was  repugnant  to 
his  taste.  The  Reformer's  vehemence  and  roughness  became 
more  and  more  offensive  to  him.*  Erasmus  hated  a  commotion, 
and  said  himself  that  he  would  sacrifice  a  part  of  the  truth  for 
the  sake  of  peace,  and  that  he  was  not  of  the  stuff  which  martyrs 
are  made  of.    He  could  be  an  Arian  or  a  Pelagian,  he  said,  if 

1  De  Wette,  i.  335. 

*  It  is  the  "moderation"  of  Erasmus  that  leads  Gibbon  (eh.  liv.  n.  38)  to 
say:  "Erasmus  may  be  considered  the  father  of  rational  theology.  After  a 
slumber  of  an  hundred  years,  it  was  revived  by  the  Arminians  of  Holland,  Gro- 
tius,  Limborch,  and  Le  Clerc ;  in  England  by  Chillingworth,  the  latitudinarians 
of  Cambridge  (Burnet,  Hist,  of  his  own  Times,  vol.  i.  pp.  261-268,  octavo  edition), 
Tillotson,  Clarke,  Hoadley,"  etc. 

»  De  Wette,  i.  52.  *  Strauss,  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  p.  486. 


LUTHER   AND  ERASMUS  113 

the  Church  had  so  made  its  creed ;  and  yet,  in  his  inmost  heart, 
and  apart  from  the  feeling  that  he  must  be  anchored  somewhere, 
the  authority  of  the  Church  counted  for  Httle.  Being  by  tem- 
perament, by  his  personal  relations,  and  by  the  effect  of  years, 
and,  we  might  add,  on  principle,  a  time-server,  he  found  himself, 
being  also  the  most  prominent  man  of  the  age,  in  an  embarrass- 
ing situation.  He  must  stay  in  the  Church,  yet,  if  possible, 
offend  neither  party/  Luther  saw  through  him,  and  in  a  letter 
that  was  not  meant  to  be  unfriendly,  he  irritated  the  great 
scholar  by  inviting  him  to  be  a  spectator  of  the  magnificent 
tragedy  in  which  he  was  not  fitted  to  be  an  actor.^  The  refusal 
of  Erasmus  to  see  Ulrich  von  Hutten  when  he  visited  Basel,  and 
the  furious  controversy  that  ensued  between  them,  —  for  Eras- 
mus was  provoked  into  the  use  of  a  style  which  he  very  much 
deplored  in  Luther,  an  inconsistency  which  Luther  did  not 
fail  to  point  out,  —  was  the  first  decided  step  in  the  alienation 
of  the  great  scholar  from  the  evangehcal  party.  Then  Erasmus 
at  length  yielded  to  the  persuasions  that  had  long  been  addressed 
to  him  from  the  papal  side,  and  took  the  field  against  Luther, 
in  a  treatise  on  free  will;  in  which  the  Reformer  was  assaulted 
on  a  subject  where  his  extravagant  language  exposed  him  to 
an  easy  attack,  and  on  which  Erasmus  could  write  with  some 
warmth  of  conviction.  He  and  his  associates  preferred  the 
Greek  theology  to  that  of  Augustine,  on  this  subject  of  the  will. 
More  once  complained  that  Luther  "clung  by  tooth  and  nail  to 
the  doctrine  of  Augustine."  Theologians  who  explain  difficul- 
ties by  referring  to  "original  sin,"  Erasmus  had  once  likened  to 
astrologers  who  fall  back  on  the  stars.  The  moderation  of  the 
personal  references  to  Luther  in  the  book  of  Erasmus  did  not 
restrain  the  former  from  the  use  of  the  severest  style  in  his  reply. 
Erasmus,  he  thought,  had  taken  his  place  under  the  banner  of 
the  Pope ;  he  had  come  out  on  the  semi-Pelagian  side,  from  which 
the  whole  system  of  salvation  by  merit  was  inseparable ;  and  the 
higher  his  standing,  the  more  unsparing  must  be  the  attack 
upon  him.  The  rejoinder  of  Erasmus  —  the  "Hyperaspistes," 
the  first  part  of  which  appeared  in  1525,  and  the  second  in  1527 
—  completed,  if  anything  was  wanted  to  complete,  their  mutual 
estrangement.     From  that  time  Luther  habitually  spoke  of  him 

*  Luther  notices  the  "dexterity"  of  Erasmus,  De  Wette,  i.  396. 
2  Letter  to  Erasmus  (April,  1524),  De  Wette.  ii.  498. 


114  THE  REFORMATION 

as  a  disciple  of  Lucian,  a  disciple  of  Epicurus,  an  enemy  of  all 
religions,  especially  the  Christian,  and  flung  at  him  other  appella- 
tions, which,  if  literally  unjust,  sometimes  had  the  truth  of  a 
caricature.  Finally,  a  long  letter  of  Luther  to  his  friend,  Nicho- 
las von  Amsdorf,  in  which  the  author  undertook  to  maintain  a 
charge  of  skepticism,  as  well  as  of  frivolous  levity,  against  Eras- 
mus, by  reference  to  his  comments  on  Scripture,  drew  out  a 
reply  which  is  marked  by  all  the  refinement,  ingenuity,  and  wit 
for  which  Erasmus  was  deservedly  famous.  From  this  time, 
his  animosity  against  the  Protestant  cause  went  on  increasing. 
Luther  more  than  once  complains  that  Erasmus  could  make  the 
sins  and  distress  of  the  Church  a  theme  for  jesting.^  In  the 
epistle  to  Amsdorf,  he  charges  him  with  infusing  into  the  young 
a  spirit  at  war  with  religious  earnestness.^ 

1  De  Wette,  i.  76.  He  finds  fault  with  Erasmus,  "senex  et  theologus, "  for 
treating  sacred  things  in  a  jesting  way,  in  a  period  "  negotiosissimo  et  laborioso." 
Ibid.,  iv.  508 ;  Letter  to  Nic.  Amsdorf.  Luther,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  not 
thought  well  of  the  Epistolce  Ohscurorum  Virorum. 

2  Ibid.,  iv.  519.  The  letters  of  Luther  set  forth  the  rise  and  progress  of  his 
estrangement  from  Erasmus.  In  a  letter  to  Spalatin  (October  19,  1516)  he  ex- 
presses his  dissent  from  the  idea  of  Erasmus  that,  by  "works  of  the  law,"  Paul 
means  ceremonial  works  alone,  gives  his  own  view  of  justification,  and  wishes 
Spalatin  to  try  to  alter  the  views  of  Erasmus  on  this  point.  He  writes  to  Lange 
(March  1,  1517),  that  he  reads  Erasmus —  "nostrum  Erasmum,"  he  styles  him 
—  but  that  his  esteem  for  him  diminishes  daily,  that  Erasmus  exposes  well  the 
ignorance  of  priests  and  monks,  but  does  not  dwell  sufficiently  on  Christ  and  the 
grace  of  God:  "humana  prievalent  in  eo  plus  quam  divina."  He  comes  to  this 
conclusion  reluctantly,  and  is  careful  not  to  disclose  it,  in  order  not  to  give  aid  to 
the  enemies  and  rivals  of  Erasmus.  Luther's  censure  of  the  levity  of  Erasmus 
in  reference  to  the  calamities  of  the  Church  is  frequently  expressed.  Erasmus 
(April  14,  1519)  wrote  to  the  Elector  a  letter,  in  which  he  complimented  Luther. 
In  writing  to  Spalatin  (May  22,  1519),  Luther  expresses  his  gratification.  On 
the  28th  of  the  previous  March,  Luther  had  written  a  respectful  letter  to  Erasmus 
himself,  in  which  his  talents  and  services  are  fully  appreciated ;  to  which  Eras- 
mus replied,  in  May,  in  gracious,  but  cautious  terms.  Everything  shows  that 
Erasmus  was  favorable  to  Luther,  but  did  not  deem  it  safe  to  betray  the  extent 
of  his  sympathy.  His  position  Luther  fully  understood,  as  is  shown  in  many 
passages  of  his  letters.  In  a  letter  to  Spengler  (November  17,  1520)  Luther  remarks 
that  he  has  private  disputes  with  Melancthon  on  the  question  how  far  from  the 
right  way  Erasmus  is  —  Melancthon,  of  course,  being  more  favorable  to  the  great 
Humanist.  In  reference  to  the  advice  of  Erasmus  that  Luther  would  be  more 
moderate,  he  writes  (to  Spalatin,  September  9,  1521)  that  Erasmus  looks  "non 
ad  crucem,  sed  ad  pacem":  "memini  me,  dum  in  prsefatione  sua  in  Novum  Tes- 
tamentum  de  se  ipso  diceret :  'gloriam  facile  contemnit  Christianus' —  in  corde 
mea  cogitasse  :  'O  Erasme,  falleris,  timeo.  Magna  res  est  gloriam  contemnere.'  " 
To  Spalatin  (May  15,  1522),  he  charges  Erasmus  with  betraying,  "in  sua  Epis- 
tolarum  farragine, "  his  secret  hostility  to  him  and  his  doctrine,  and  declares 
that  he  prefers  an  open  foe  like  Eck  to  a  tergiversating  person,  now  friendly  and 
now  hostile.  To  Caspar  Borner  (May  28,  1522),  he  writes  that  he  is  aware  that 
Erasmus  dissents  from  him  on  predestination,  but  that  he  has  no  fear  of  Eras- 
mus's eloquence:  "potentior  est  Veritas  quam  eloquentia,  potior  spiritus  quam 
ingenium,  major  fides  quam  eruditio. "     To  CEcolampadius  (June  20,  1523),  he 


LUTHER   AND   ERASMUS  115 

If  we  look  below  the  accidents  of  the  controversy,  and  cast 
aside  particulars  in  which  Luther  was  often  as  incorrect,  as  he 
was  uncharitable  in  his  general  estimate  of  his  antagonist,  we 
must  conclude  that  Luther  was  still  in  the  right  in  his  judg- 
ment respecting  the  reform  of  the  Church.  It  could  not  come 
from  literature,  Erasmus  could  assail  the  outworks,  such  as 
the  follies  of  monkery,  but  the  principles  out  of  which  these 
obnoxious  practices  had  grown,  he  would  touch  only  so  far  as 
it  could  be  done  without  danger  to  himself  and  without  dis- 
turbance. Luther  had  been  himself  a  monk,  not  like  Eras- 
mus for  a  brief  time  and  through  compulsion,  but  of  choice, 
with  a  profound  inward  consecration.  He  had  personally 
tested,  with  all  sincerity  and  earnestness,  the  prevailing  system 
of  religion,  until  he  discerned  the  wrong  foundations  on  which 
it  rested.  He  saw  that  the  tree  must  be  made  good  before  the 
character  of  the  fruit  could  be  changed.  And  there  was  still 
a  vitality  in  the  old  system  with  which  the  weapons  of  Erasmus 
were  quite  insufficient  to  cope.  It  is  humihating  to  see  him 
resorting  to  the  Pope's  legate,  and  then  to  the  Pope  himself, 
for  leave  to  read  the  writings  of  Luther.  It  is  safe  to  affirm 
that  the  Erasmian  school  would  eventually  have  been  driven 
to  the  wall  by  the  monastic  party,  which  sooner  or  later  would 
have  combined  its  energies ;  and  that  without  the  sterner  battle 
waged  by  Luther,  the  literary  reformers,  with  their  lukewarm, 
equivocal  position  in  relation  to  fundamental  principles  would 
have  succumbed  to  the  terrors  of  the  Inquisition.     There  was 

speaks  of  the  covert  hostility  of  Erasmus  to  the  Lutheran  doctrine,  and  charac- 
terizes him  thus:  "Linguas  introduxit,  et  a  sacrilegis  studiis  revocavit.  Forte 
et  ipse  cum  Mose  in  campestribus  Moab  morietur :  nam  ad  meHora  studia  (quod 
ad  pietatem  pertinet)  non  provehit."  In  April,  1524,  Luther  wrote  a  letter  to 
Erasmus,  in  which  he  makes  an  offer  of  peace,  but  in  a  manner  so  condescending 
and  with  such  plain  observations  upon  the  limitations  of  Erasmus  as  to  courage 
and  discernment,  that  he  could  not  fail  to  be  irritated  by  it.  In  this  singular 
epistle,  which  was  well  meant  but  very  ill  calculated  to  produce  amity,  Luther 
expresses  the  wish  that  his  friends  would  desist  from  assailing  Erasmus ;  as  they 
would  do,  it  is  added,  "if  they  considered  your  imbecility  and  weighed  the  great- 
ness of  the  cause,  which  has  long  since  exceeded  the  measure  of  your  powers. "  He 
condoles  with  his  correspondent  in  view  of  the  great  amount  of  enmity  which 
Erasmus  had  excited  against  himself,  "since  mere  human  virtue  such  as  yours  is 
insufficient  for  such  burdens."  The  reply  of  Erasmus,  though  dignified  in  tone, 
shows  how  deeply  he  was  offended.  In  September  of  the  same  year  he  gave 
way  to  the  importunities  of  the  opponents  of  Luther  and  wrote  his  book  De  Lib- 
era Arbitrio,  which  was  followed  by  an  acrimonious  controversy.  From  this 
time  Luther  denounces  him  without  reserve.  He  calls  Erasmus  that  "most 
vain  animal"  (De  Wette,  iii.  98),  predicts  that  he  will  "fall  between  two 
stools  "  (Ibid.,  447) ;  and  characterizes  him  in  the  manner  stated  above. 


116  THE   REFORMATION 

certain  to  be  an  aroused,  implacable  earnestness  on  the  papal 
side :  a  like  spirit  was  required  in  the  cause  of  reform.  At  the 
same  time,  justice  to  Erasmus  requires  that  he  should  be  judged 
rather  by  his  relation  to  the  preceding  age,  than  by  compari- 
son with  Luther/  The  forerunner  is  not  to  be  weighed  by  the 
standards  of  the  era  which  he  has  helped  to  introduce. 

As  we  have  touched  on  the  personal  traits  of  Luther  as  a 
controversialist,  it  is  well  to  add  here  that  of  all  men  he  may 
most  easily  be  misrepresented.  A  man  of  imagination  and 
feeling,  with  intense  convictions  that  burned  for  utterance,  he 
never  took  pains  to  measure  his  language.  He  put  forth  his 
doctrine  in  startling,  paradoxical  forms,  out  of  which  a  cold- 
blooded critic,  or  artful  polemic  could  easily  make  contradic- 
tions and  absurdities.  In  this  respect,  he  was  as  artless  and 
careless  as  the  writers  of  the  Bible.  Like  Paul,  and  on  the 
same  grounds,  he  has  been  charged  with  favoring  antinomian 
laxness  and  positive  immorality.  It  is  a  charge  which  ema- 
nates from  ignorance  or  malice.  It  is  frequently  made  by  plod- 
ders who  are  incapable  of  interpreting  the  fervid  utterances, 
of  entering  into  the  profound  conceptions  of  a  man  of  genius, 
but  are  simply  shocked  by  them.^ 

One  other  event  of  which  we  have  to  speak  here  is  the  Peas- 
ants' War.  The  preaching  of  Luther  and  his  associates  pro- 
duced inevitably  a  ferment,  in  which  manifold  tendencies  to 
social  disorder  might  easily  acquire  additional  force.  The  dis- 
content of  the  nobles  or  knights  with  the  princes  sought  to 
ally  itself  with  the  new  zeal  in  behalf  of  a  pure  Gospel;  but 
this  revolt  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  defeat  and  death 
of  Francis  of  Sickingen.  The  disaffection  of  the  peasants,  on 
account  of  the  oppression  under  which  they  suffered,  had  long 
existed.  It  had  led  in  several  instances  to  open  insurrection. 
Long  before  the  Reformation,  there  had  been  mingled  with 
these  political  tendencies  a  reUgious  element.^  But  their  dis- 
content was  fomented  by  the  spread  among  them  of  the 
Lutheran  doctrine  of  Christian  liberty,  from  which  they  drew 
inferences  in  accord  with  their  own  aspirations,  and  by  the 

'  Strauss,  TJlrich  von  Hutten,  p.  481. 

*  The  criticisms  of  Hallam  upon  Luther,  together  with  the  erroneous  state- 
ments of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  are  thoroughly  answered  by  Archdeacon  Hare, 
Vindication  of  Luther,  etc.  (2d  ed.,  1855). 

8  Ranke,  i.  127. 


LUTHER   AND   THE    PEASANTS'   WAR  117 

popular  excitement  which  the  Reformation  kindled.  There  was 
a  secular  and  religious  side  to  the  revolt.  Heavier  burdens  had 
been  laid  upon  the  laboring  class  by  their  lay  and  ecclesiastical 
masters.  The  forcible  repression  of  the  evangelical  doctrine 
was  an  added  grievance.  Their  roll  of  complaints  carries  us 
forward  to  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution;  nor  can  it  be 
questioned  that  many  of  them  called  loudly  for  redress.^  Luther 
had  much  sympathy  with  them;  he  maintained  that  their 
grievances  should  be  removed;  he  advised  mutual  concessions; 
but  he  was  inflexibly  and  on  principle  opposed  to  a  resort  to 
arms.  He  had  counseled  Sickingen  and  Hutten  against  it.^ 
In  general  he  set  his  face  against  every  attempt  to  transfer  the 
cause  of  reform  from  the  arena  of  discussion  to  the  field  of 
battle.  What  would  become  of  schools,  of  teaching,  of  preach- 
ing, he  said,  when  once  the  sword  was  drawn?  It  is  a  part  of 
his  deliberate  resolution  to  keep  the  minds  of  men  upon  the 
main  questions  in  controversy,  that  there  might  be  an  intelligent, 
enlightened,  free  adoption  of  the  truth.  The  peasants,  he  held, 
had  no  right  to  make  an  insurrection.  He  exerted  himself  in 
vain  to  persuade  them  to  abstain  from  it.  Like  the  early 
Christians,  he  felt  that  it  was  a  spiritual  agency,  and  not  force, 
that  could  give  to  the  truth  a  real  victory.  He  wanted  to  keep 
the  cause  of  God  clear  of  the  entanglements  of  worldly  prudence 
and  worldly  power.  Hence,  when  their  great  rebellion  broke 
out  in  1524  and  1525,  he  exhorted  the  princes  to  put  it  down 
with  a  strong  hand.  The  terms  of  this  appeal  seem  ruthless. 
He  saw,  in  the  event  of  the  success  of  the  revolt,  nothing  but 
the  destruction  of  civil  order  and  a  wild  reign  of  fanaticism.^ 
The  abolition  of  all  existing  authority  in  Church  and  State, 
equality  in  rank  and  in  property,  were  a  part  of  the  peasants' 
creed.  After  the  victory  Luther  urged  the  victors  to  the  ex- 
ercise of  compassion,  reminding  them  that  it  was  not  the  hand 
of  man  but  God  that  had  quieted  the  disorder.    If  the  fact  of 

1  Hausser,  Gsch.  d.  Zeitalt.  d.  Ref.,  p.  103  seq. ;    Ranke,  Deutsche  Gsch.,  i.  134. 

2  Letter  to  Spalatin  (January  16,  1521),  De  Wette,  i.  543. 

3  Ranke,  Deutsche  Gsch.,  i.  149.  Waddington  (ii.  154  seq.)  and  other  writers 
censure  Luther  with  much  severity  for  his  denunciation  of  the  peasants.  But 
Luther  considered  that  tliere  was  a  fearful  crisis,  in  which  the  foundations  of 
society  were  in  peril.  The  insurrection  was  very  formidable  in  numbers  and 
strength.  .  .  .  The  temperament  of  Luther,  it  would  seem,  was  such  that  were 
his  disapproval  excited  by  something  detested  as  being  base  and  perilous,  an 
intemperate,  not  unlikely  passionate,  outburst  of  his  feeling  would  be  likely 
to  occur,  with  none  of  the  qualifications  natural  in  another  mood  of  mind. 


118  THE   REFORMATION 

the  revolt,  evidently  occasioned  as  it  was,  to  some  extent,  by 
the  Reformation,  produced  a  temporary  reaction  against  it, 
this  effect  was  diminished  by  the  outspoken,  strenuous  opposi- 
tion which  Luther  had  made  to  the  ill-fated  enterprise.  The|/ 
Reformation  is  not  responsible  for  the  Peasants'  War.  It 
would  have  taken  place  if  the  Protestant  doctrines  had  not 
been  preached;  and  it  was  caused  by  inveterate  abuses  for 
which  the  ecclesiastical  princes  in  Germany,  by  their  extortions 
and  tyranny,  were  chiefly  accountable. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  GERMAN  REFORMATION  TO  THE  PEACE  OF  AUGSBURG,  1555: 
ZWINGLI  AND  THE  SWISS  (gERMAN)  REFORMATION 

At  the  time  when  Luther  was  beginning  to  attract  the 
attention  of  Europe,  another  reformatory  movement,  of  a  type 
somewhat  pecuUar,  was  springing  up  on  a  more  contracted 
theater.  The  Swiss  Confederacy  began  in  the  Covenant  of 
three  rural  or  "forest"  cantons,  in  1291,  which,  by  the  accession 
of  other  territories  and  city  states,  had  become,  in  the  time  of 
the  Reformation,  thirteen  in  number,  connected  by  a  loose 
bond  in  a  Diet  of  representatives.  In  the  fifteenth  century, 
the  Swiss,  whose  military  strength  had  been  developed  in  their 
long  and  victorious  struggle  for  independence,  and  who  had  done 
much  to  revolutionize  the  art  of  war  by  showing  that  infantry 
might  be  more  than  a  match  for  cavalry,  were  employed  in  large 
numbers,  as  mercenary  soldiers,  in  Italy.  The  Pope  and  the 
French  King  were  the  chief  competitors  in  effects  to  secure 
these  valuable  auxiliaries.  The  means  by  which  this  was  ac- 
complished were  demoraUzing  in  their  influence  upon  the  coun- 
try. The  foreign  potentates  purchased,  by  bribes  and  pensions, 
the  cooperation  of  influential  persons  among  the  Swiss,  and 
thus  corrupted  the  spirit  of  patriotism.  The  patronage  of  the 
Church  was  used  in  an  unprincipled  manner,  for  the  further- 
ance of  this  worldly  interest  of  the  Pope.  Ecclesiastical  dis- 
cipline was  sacrificed,  preferments  and  indulgences  lavishly 
bestowed,  in  order  that  the  hardy  peasantry  might  be  enticed 
from  their  homes  to  fight  his  battles  in  the  ItaHan  peninsula. 
These  brought  home  from  their  campaigns  vicious  and  lawless 
habits.  At  the  same  time,  in  consequence  of  what  they  wit- 
nessed in  Italy,  much  of  their  reverence  for  the  rulers  of  the 
Church  was  dispelled.  The  corrupt  administration  of  the 
Church  had  a  Hke  effect  on  their  countrymen  who  remained 
at  home.     Thus  there  was  a  combination  of  agencies  which 

119 


120  THE   REFORMATION 

operated  to  debase  the  morals  of  the  Swiss  people,  at  the  same 
time  that  their  superstitious  awe  for  ecclesiastical  superiors 
was  vanishing.  The  influence  of  the  literary  culture  of  the  age, 
also,  made  itself  felt  in  Switzerland.  High  schools  had  sprung 
up  in  various  cities.  A  circle  of  men  who  were  interested  in 
classical  literature  and  were  gradually  acquiring  more  enlight- 
ened ideas  in  religion,  had  their  center  in  Basel  where  Erasmus 
took  up  -his  abode  in  1516  and  became  their  acknowledged 
head.^ 

Ulrich  Zwingli,  the  founder  of  Protestantism  in  Switzerland, 
was  born  on  the  1st  of  January,  1484,  close  by  Wildhaus,  a  small 
village  in  a  picturesque  situation  on  the  mountains  which  over- 
look the  valley  of  Toggenburg.  He  was  only  a  few  weeks 
younger  than  Luther.  The  father  of  Zwingli  was  the  principal 
magistrate  of  the  town.^  Young  Zwingli  spent  his  boyhood 
under  teachers  near  home,  until  he  was  sent  to  school  first  at 
Basel,  and  then  at  Berne.  Bright-minded  and  eager  for  knowl- 
edge, he  was  also  early  distinguished  for  his  love  of  truth, 
which  never  ceased  to  be  one  of  the  marked  virtues  of  his  char- 
acter. Like  Luther,  he  had  an  extraordinary  talent  for  music. 
He  learned  afterwards  to  play  on  various  instruments.  Among 
his  associates  at  the  University  of  Vienna,  where  he  was  first 
placed,  was  the  famous  Eck.  There  he  took  up  the  study  of 
scholastic  philosophy.  At  Basel,  to  which  place  he  was  trans- 
ferred, Capito  and  Leo  Juda,  who  were  to  be  his  confederates 
in  the  work  of  reform,  were  among  his  fellow-students.  Here 
his  principal  teacher  was  Thomas  Wyttenbach,  a  man  of  liberal 
tendencies,  as  well  as  of  devout  character,  who  predicted  the 
downfall  of  the  scholastic  theology,  and  imparted  impulses  to 
his  pupils  which  eventually  carried  them  beyond  his  own  position. 
Zwingli  was  a  zealous  student  of  the  Latin  classics,  and  after  be- 
coming at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  a  pastor  at  Glarus,  he  prose- 
cuted the  reading  of  the  Roman  authors,  partly  for  the  truth 
which  he  loved  to  seek  in  them,  and  partly  to  make  himself  an 
orator.  He  entered,  also,  with  diligence  upon  the  study  of  Greek. 
His  sympathy  with  Humanism  was  native  and  grew  with  advanc- 
ing years.     Circumstances  conspired  to  heighten  his  interest  in 

•  There  was  a  literary  public.     See  Ranke,  Deutsch.  Gsch.,  ii.  40,  14. 

^  See  the  account  of  Zwingli 's  family  in  the  excellent  biography  of  J.  C.  Mori- 
kofer,  Ulrich  Zwingli  nach  den  urkundlichen  Quellen,  2  vols.  (1867),  and,  also,  in 
S.  M.  Jackson's  valuable  Huldreich  Zwingli  (1901), 


ZWIXGLI'S   EDUCATION  121 

Erasmus.  He  carefully  copied  with  his  own  hand  the  epistles 
of  Paul  in  the  original,  that  he  might  have  them  in  a  portable 
volume  and  commit  them  to  memory.  More  and  more  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  examination  of  the  Bible  and  deferred 
to  its  authority.  He  read  the  Fathers,  as  counselors,  not  as 
authoritative  guides.  He  was  deeply  moved  by  happening  to 
read  a  poem  of  Erasmus  in  which  Jesus  was  depicted  as  com- 
plaining that  men  do  not  seek  all  good  of  him,  their  Saviour 
and  Helper.  This,  as  he  said  years  later,  led  him  to  ask  him- 
self ''why  we  look  to  any  creature  to  lend  us  help."  Seeking 
for  "a  touchstone  of  truth,"  he  said  of  the  result  that  he  ''came 
to  rely  on  no  single  thing  save  that  which  came  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Lord."  Two  cardinal  principles,  which  Luther  reached 
by  the  power  of  personal  experience,  Zwingli  arrived  at  on  the 
path  of  Humanistic  study,  —  not  involving  at  once  a  severance 
from  Rome.  He  was  obliged  to  leave  Glarus,  on  account  of 
his  bold  opposition  to  the  system  of  pensions  and  of  mercenary 
service  under  the  French.  Zwingli  was  a  thorough  patriot 
from  his  early  boyhood.  He  listened  by  the  hearthstone  to 
tales  of  gallant  work  done  by  his  relatives  and  townsmen  in  the 
recent  war  against  Charles  of  Burgundy.  As  he  grew  older  he 
witnessed  the  deleterious  efTect  of  the  French  influence,  to 
which  we  have  adverted.  He  saw,  moreover,  the  low  condition 
of  morals  among  the  clergy,  and  became  more  alive  to  the  de- 
plorable state  of  things  from  the  bitter  compunction  which  his 
own  compliance  with  temptation  in  a  single  instance  cost 
him.^  At  first  he  did  not  look  upon  military  service  which  was 
rendered  at  the  call  of  the  Pope,  the  Head  of  the  Church,  with 
the  same  disapprobation  which  he  felt  in  regard  to  the  French. 
He  even  accompanied  his  parishioners  to  war,  and  was  present 
on  the  field  of  Marignano.  He,  moreover,  thought  it  no  wrong 
to  receive  a  pension  from  the  Pope,  which  was  first  given  him 
for  the  purchase  of  books.  But  his  public  opposition  at  Glarus 
to  the  French  party,  which  was  strong  there,  obliged  him  to 
leave  and  to  take  up  his  abode  at  a  smaller  place,  Einsiedeln, 
where  he  took  the  office  of  pastor  and  preacher  in  the  Church 
of  the  Virgo  Eremitana  —  Virgin  of  the  Hermitage.     This  was 

'  Leben  und  Ausgewiihlte  Schriften  d.  Vdter  u.  Begrunder  d.  Ref.  Kirche.  Chris- 
toffel,  Hulderich  Zwingli,  Leben  u.  Ausgewdhlte  Schriften,  i.  10.  Opera  Zwinglii^ 
viii.  54  seq. 


122  THE   REFORMATION 

in  1516.  Just  before  this  change  he  made  a  visit  to  Basel  to 
see  Erasmus,  by  whom  he  was  most  cordially  received.  In 
letters  to  one  another  each  expressed  his  admiration  of  the 
other.  ^Vhen  the  line  was  drawn  between  the  two  great  ec- 
clesiastical parties,  their  intimacy  was  broken  off.  At  Einsiedeln 
there  was  a  cloister  as  well  as  a  church,  with  a  store  of  legends. 
It  was  the  chief  resort  of  pilgrims  from  all  the  adjacent  region. 
Indulgences  were  liberally  bestowed,  and  an  image  of  Mary,  of 
peculiar  sanctity,  attracted  crowds  of  devotees.  Zwingli,  with- 
out directly  assailing  the  worship  of  the  Virgin,  preached  to 
the  throng  of  visitors  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  Christ,  and 
of  his  mercy  and  sufficiency  as  a  Saviour,  which  had  been  more 
and  more  impressed  on  his  mind  by  the  investigation  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  people  felt  that  they  were  hearing  new  truth, 
and  a  striking  effect  was  produced  on  many.  He  had  now 
fully  made  up  his  mind  to  go  to  the  Word  of  God  as  the  ulti- 
mate authority,  in  preference  to  the  dogmas  of  men.  To  in- 
dividuals, to  his  friend  Capito  and  to  Cardinal  Sitten,  he  stated 
that  he  found  in  the  Scriptures  no  foundation  for  the  rule  of 
the  Papacy.*  He  even  said  to  Capito,  in  1517,  that  he  thought 
the  Papacy  must  fall.  In  1518  he  preached  against  one  Sam- 
son, who,  like  Tetzel,  was  a  peddler  of  indulgences,  so  that  the 
traffic  was  stopped  in  the  Canton  of  Schweitz,  and  Samson 
obliged  to  decamp.  In  1519,  owing  very  much  to  the  influence 
of  leading  opponents  of  the  French  party,  Zwingli  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Zurich,  then  a  city  of  about 
seven  thousand  inhabitants.  Here  he  carried  out  his  purpose, 
which  he  announced  at  the  outset,  of  expounding  the  Bible  to 
his  hearers,  and  of  inculcating  the  truth  which  he  found  there. 
In  this  way,  in  sermons  which  were  heard  by  a  multitude  with 
eager  interest,  he  went  through  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  He 
explained,  also,  the  epistles  of  Paul;  and  for  fear  that  some 
would  have  less  respect  for  Paul,  as  he  was  not  one  of  the  twelve, 
he  showed  the  identity  of  Peter's  doctrine  by  an  exposition  of 
his  epistles.  He  had  great  power  as  a  preacher:  one  of  his 
hearers  said  that  it  seemed  to  him  that  Zwingli  held  him  by  the 
hair  of  his  head.  When  Samson  appeared  with  his  indulgences 
(in  1519),  he  again  denounced  him  and  his  trade,  and  was  sup- 
ported in  his  opposition  by  the  Bishop  of  Constance,  to  whom 

>  Christoffel,    i.    24. 


ZWINGLI'S   THEOLOGIC    PRINCIPLES  123 

Samson  had  neglected  to  exhibit  his  credentials;  so  that  the 
friar  was  denied  permission  to  vend  his  wares  in  Zurich. 
ZwingU  was  a  man  of  robust  health,  cheerful  countenance  and 
kindly  manners,  affable  with  all  classes ;  a  man  of  indefatigable 
industry,  yet  enjoying  domestic  life  to  the  full  —  he  was  mar- 
ried in  1524  —  and  fond  of  spending  an  evening  at  the  inn,  in 
familiar  conversation  with  magistrates  or  leading  citizens,  or 
with  strangers  who  happened  to  be  present/  Upright,  humble 
before  God,  but  fearless  before  men,  devoted  to  the  work  of  a 
preacher  and  pastor,  but  taking  an  active  part  in  whatever 
concerned  the  well-being  of  his  country,  Zwingli  acquired  by 
degrees,  though  not  without  opposition  and  occasional  exposure 
to  extreme  danger,  a  controlling  influence  in  Zurich.  A  turning 
point  in  his  career  was  the  public  Disputation,  which  was  held 
at  his  own  request,  under  the  auspices  of  the  government  of 
Zurich,  on  the  29th  of  January,  1523,  in  the  great  Council  Hall, 
where  he  had  proposed  to  defend  himself  against  all  who  chose 
to  bring  against  him  charges  of  heresy.  He  had  really  won 
the  battle  beforehand,  in  persuading  the  Council  to  take  the 
part  of  judges,  and,  in  the  exercise  of  their  authority,  to  have 
all  questions  decided  by  reference  to  the  Scriptures  alone.  In 
an  open  space,  in  the  midst  of  an  assembly  of  more  than  six 
hundred  men,  he  sat  by  a  table,  on  which  he  had  placed  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures  and  the  Latin  version.  His 
triumphant  maintenance  of  his  opinions  against  his  feeble  as- 
sailants resulted  in  an  injunction  from  the  Council  to  persevere 
in  preaching  from  the  Scriptures  alone,  and  a  like  command  to 
all  the  clergy  to  teach  nothing  which  the  Scriptures  do  not 
warrant.  In  this  conference  he  defended  sixty-seven  proposi- 
tions which  were  leveled  against  the  system  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  The  authority  of  the  Gospel  is  substituted 
for  the  authority  of  the  Church;  the  Church  is  declared  to  be 
the  communion  of  the  faithful,  who  have  no  head  but  Christ; 
salvation  is  through  faith  in  Him  as  the  only  priest  and  inter- 
cessor; the  Papacy  and  the  mass,  invocation  of  saints,  justi- 
fication by  works,  fasts,  festivals,  pilgrimages,  monastic  orders 
and  the  priesthood,  auricular  confession,  absolution,  indulgences, 

'  "Seriis  et  jocos  miscuit  et  ludos :  nam  ingenio  amoenus,  et  ore  jucundus 
supra  quam  dici  possit,  erat.  Dein  musices  omnis  generis  instrumenta  perdi- 
dicit  et  exercuit,  non  nisi  ut  ingenio  seriis  illis  defatigato  et  recreari  et  ad  ea  par- 
tior  redire  posset."     Myconius,  Vita  Huld.  Zwinglii,  iii. 


124  THE   REFORMATION 

penances,  purgatory,  and  indeed  all  the  characteristic  peculiari- 
ties of  the  Roman  Catholic  creed  and  cultus,  are  rejected.  Juris- 
diction over  the  authorities  of  the  Chiu-ch  is  claimed  for  the 
civil  magistrates/  Again,  in  another  disputation,  before  a 
much  more  numerous  audience,  on  the  26th  of  October  follow- 
ing, he  obtained  a  decree  of  the  Council  against  the  use  of  images 
and  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass.  After  a  severe  contest,  he  es- 
tablished the  principle  that  the  fasts  of  the  Church  are  optional, 
not  obligatory.  In  all  the  changes  of  this  sort,  radical  as  some 
of  them  were,  extending  even  to  the  disuse  of  the  organ  in  the 
minster,  Zwingli  proceeded  temperately,  with  the  same  regard 
to  weak  consciences  which  Luther  had  shown,  and  taking  care 
that  everything  should  be  done  in  an  orderly  manner,  and  by 
public  authority.  Like  Luther,  he  found  himself  obliged  to 
sustain  a  contest  with  Anabaptist  enthusiasts.  Zurich,  sepa- 
rated from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Constance,  became 
a  Church,  at  the  head  of  which  were  the  magistrates,  who  were 
proper  representatives,  in  Zwingli's  view,  of  the  body  of  the 
congregation  (1524). 

In  1525  Zwingli  published  his  principal  work,  the  "Comanen- 
tary  on  True  and  False  Religion,"  which  was  dedicated  to  Fran- 
cis I. ;  and,  about  the  same  time,  a  treatise  on  original  sin. 
In  these  and  other  writings  he  set  forth  his  theological  system. 
This  presented  certain  deviations  at  variance  with  Roman  doc- 
trine, to  which  he  had  arrived  in  his  own  reflections  and  reading. 
In  most  points  he  coincides  with  the  usual  Protestant  doctrine, 
but,  as  will  be  explained,  he  departed  farther  from  the  old 
system  in  his  conception  of  the  sacraments ;  he  ascribed  to  them 
a  less  important  function;  and  he  considered  original  sin  a 
disorder  rather  than  a  state  involving  guilt.^  It  is  remarkable 
that  Zwingli  in  his  philosophy  was  a  predestinarian  of  an  ex- 
treme type,  and  anticipated  Calvinism  in  avowing  the  supralap- 
sarian  tenet;  in  this  particular,  going  beyond  Augustine.  But 
he  held  that  Christ  has  redeemed  the  entire  race,  which  has 
been  lost  in  Adam;  and  that  infants,  not  only  such  as  are  un- 
baptized  in  Christian  lands,  but  the  offspring  of  the  heathen, 
also,  are  all  saved.     Moreover,  he  did  not  accept  the  prevailing 

*  Zwingli,  Opera,  vii.      Herzog,  Realcncycl.,  art.  "Zwingli,"    xviii.  716. 

2  His  opinion  on  this  subject  varied  somewhat  at  different  times.  See  Zeller, 
Das  theol.  Syst.  Zwinglis  dargestellt  (Abdruck  aus  Jahrg.  1853,  Theol.  Jahrb.), 
p.  51  seq. 


ZWINGLI'S  THEOLOGIC   PRINCIPLES  125 

belief  in  the  universal  condemnation  of  the  heathen.  The 
passages  of  Scripture  which  seem  to  assert  this  he  regarded  as 
intended  to  apply  only  to  such  as  hear  the  Gospel  and  willfully 
reject  it.  The  divine  election  and  the  illumination  of  the  Spirit 
are  not  confined,  he  thought,  within  the  circle  of  revealed  re- 
ligion, or  to  those  who  receive  the  Word  and  sacraments.  The 
virtues  of  heathen  sages  and  heroes  are  due  to  divine  grace. 
By  grace  they  were  led  to  exercise  faith  in  God.  A  Socrates, 
he  says,  was  more  pious  and  holy  than  all  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans.  On  the  catalogue  of  saints  with  the  patriarchs 
and  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  he  associates,  besides 
Socrates,  the  names  of  the  Scipios,  Camillus,  the  Catos,  Numa, 
Aristides,  Seneca,  Pindar,  even  Theseus  and  Hercules.*  The 
influence  of  Zwingli's  Humanistic  culture  is  obvious  in  this 
portion  of  his  teaching.  "He  had  busied  himself,"  says  Nean- 
der,  "  with  the  study  of  antiquity,  for  which  he  had  a  predilection, 
and  had  not  the  right  criterion  for  distinguishing  the  ethical 
standing-point  of  Christianity  from  that  of  the  ancients."  ^ 

From  Zurich  the  Reformation  spread.  In  Basel  it  had  for  a 
leader  fficolampadius,  who  had  belonged  to  the  school  of  Eras- 
mus, was  an  erudite  scholar  of  mild  temper,  and  in  his  general 
tone  resembled  Melancthon.  In  that  city  it  gained  the  upper 
hand  in  1529.  In  Berne  it  was  established  after  a  great  public 
disputation,  at  which  Zwingli  was  present,  in  1528.  The  same 
change  took  place  in  St.  Gall  and  SchafThausen. 

This  ecclesiastical  revolution  was  at  the  same  time  a  political 
one.  There  was  a  contest  between  the  republican  and  reform- 
ing party,  on  the  one  hand,  who  were  bent  on  purifying  the 
country  from  the  effects  of  foreign  influence,  from  the  corruption 
of  morals  and  of  patriotism  which  had  resulted  from  that  source, 
and  an  oligarchy,  on  the  other,  who  clung  to  their  pensions 
and  to  the  system  of  mercenary  service  with  which  their  power 
was  connected.     The  party  of  Zwingli  were  contending  for  a 

'  Fidei  Expositio,  Opera,  iv.  65.  "Non  fuit  vir  bonus,  non  erit  mens  sancta 
non  fidelis  anima,  ab  ipso  mundi  exordio  usque  ad  ejus  consummationem,  queni 
non  sis  isthic  cum  Deo  visurus. " 

2  Dogmengeschichte,  ii.  263.  On  this  topic  Neander  has  written  an  able  dis- 
cussion :  Uber  das  Verhaltniss  d.  hellenischen  Ethik  zur  Christlichen ;  Wissenchaftl. 
Abhandlungen,  p.  140.  It  had  not  been  uncommon  for  the  strictest  Roman 
Catholics  to  believe  in  the  salvation  of  Aristotle.  Of  Zwingli,  Henri  Martin  says 
(Histoire  de  France,  viii.  156)  :  "On  peut  consid^rer  I'oeuvre  de  Zuingli  comme 
le  plus  puissant  effort  qui  €i€  fait  pour  sanctifi.er  la  Renaissance  et  I'unir  a  la 
R^forme  en  J^sus  Christ." 


126  THE   REFORMATION 

social  and  national  reform  on  a  religious  foundation.  They 
aimed  to  make  the  Gospel  not  only  a  source  of  light  and  life  to 
the  individual,  but  a  renovating  power  in  the  body  politic,  for 
effecting  the  reform  of  the  social  life  and  of  the  civil  organiza- 
tion of  the  country. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  relation  of  the  Lutheran  and 
Zwinglian  movements  to  one  another.  There  were  great  differ- 
ences between  the  two  leaders.  Luther  had,  so  to  speak,  lived 
into  the  system  of  the  Latin  Church  to  a  degree  that  was  not 
true  in  the  case  of  Zwingli.  Out  of  profound  agitation,  through 
long  mental  struggles,  in  which  he  depended  little  on  aid  or. 
direction  from  abroad,  Luther  had  come  out  of  the  old  system. 
It  was  a  process  of  personal  experience  with  which  his  intellec- 
tual enlightenment  kept  pace.  One  truth,  that  of  salvation  by 
faith,  in  contrast  with  salvation  by  the  merit  of  works,  stood 
prominently  before  the  eyes  of  Luther.  The  method  of  forgive- 
ness, of  reconciliation  with  God,  had  been  with  him,  from  his 
early  youth,  the  one  engrossing  problem.  The  relation  of  the 
individual  to  God  had  absorbed  his  thoughts  and  moved  his 
sensibilities  to  the  lowest  depths.  The  renunciation  of  the 
authority  of  the  Church  was  an  act  to  which  nothing  would 
have  driven  him  but  the  force  of  his  convictions  respecting  the 
central  truth  of  justification  by  faith  alone.  The  course  of 
Zwingli's  personal  development  had  been  different.  Of  cheer- 
ful temper  and  fond  of  his  classics,  he  had  felt  no  inclination  to 
the  monastic  life.  He  came  out  of  the  Erasmian  school.  The 
authority  of  the  Church  never  had  a  very  strong  hold  upon 
him,  even  before  he  explicitly  questioned  the  validity  of  it.  As 
he  studied  the  Scriptures  and  felt  their  power,  he  easily  gave 
to  them  the  allegiance  of  his  mind  and  heart.  It  cost  him  little 
inward  effort  to  cast  off  whatever  in  the  doctrinal  or  ecclesias- 
tical system  of  the  Latin  Church  appeared  to  him  at  variance 
with  the  Bible  or  with  common  sense.  In  the  mind  there  was 
no  hard  conflict  with  an  established  prejudice.  It  would  be 
very  unjust  to  deny  to  Zwingli  religious  earnestness;  but  the 
course  of  his  inward  life  was  such  that,  although  he  heartily 
accepted  the  principle  of  justification  by  faith,  he  had  not  the 
same  vivid  idea  of  its  transcendent  importance  that  Luther 
had.  Zwingli,  a  bold  and  independent  student,  took  the  Bible 
for  his  chart,  and  was  deterred  by  no  scruples  of  latent  reverence 


LUTHER   AND   ZWINGLI   COMPARED  127 

from  abruptly  discarding  usages  which  the  Bible  did  not  sanc- 
tion. While  Luther  was  disposed  to  leave  untouched  what 
the  Bible  did  not  prohibit,  Zwingli  was  more  inclined  to  reject 
what  the  Bible  did  not  enjoin.  Closely  related  to  this  difference 
in  personal  character  is  the  very  important  diversity  in  the 
aims  of  the  two  reformers.  Luther  was  practical,  in  one  sense 
of  the  term;  he  sympathized  with  the  homely  feelings,  as  he 
was  master  of  the  homely  language,  of  the  people.  No  man 
knew  better  how  to  reach  their  hearts.  He  was  a  German  who 
was  inspired  with  a  national  sentiment,  and  indignantly  resented 
the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  his  country.  But  his  aim  was  through- 
out a  distinctly  religious  one.  He  drew  a  sharp  line  between 
the  function  which  he  conceived  to  belong  to  him,  as  a  preacher 
and  theologian,  and  the  sphere  of  political  action.  Absorbed 
in  the  truth  which  he  considered  the  life  and  soul  of  the  Gospel 
and  intent  upon  propagating  it,  he  had  no  special  aptitude  for 
the  organization  of  the  Church :  much  less  did  he  meddle  with 
the  affairs  of  civil  government,  except  in  the  character  of  a 
minister,  to  enjoin  obedience  to  established  authority.  Zwingli's 
aim  and  work  were  so  diverse,  his  turn  of  mind  and  his  circum- 
stances being  so  different,  that  Luther  and  the  other  Saxon 
theologians  were  slow  in  understanding  him  and  in  doing  jus- 
tice to  him.^  Zwingli  was  a  patriot  and  a  social  reformer. 
The  salvation  of  his  country  from  misgovernment  and  immoral- 
ity was  an  end,  inseparable,  in  his  mind,  from  the  effort  to  bring 
individuals  to  the  practical  acceptance  of  the  Gospel.^  The 
Swiss  people  must  be  lifted  up  from  their  degeneracy;  and  the 
instrument  of  doing  this  was  the  truth  of  the  Bible,  to  be  ap- 
plied not  only  to  the  individual  in  his  personal  relations  to  God, 
but  also  to  correct  abuses  in  the  social  and  civil  life  of  the  nation. 
These  grew  out  of  selfishness,  and  there  was  no  cure  for  that 
save  in  the  Word  of  God.  After  Zwingli  renounced  the  Pope's 
pension,  and  declined  his  flattering  offer  to  make  it  larger,  and 
took  his  stand  against  foreign  influence,  come  from  what  quar- 
ter it  might,  which  attained  its  ends  at  the  cost  of  national 

*  There  is  an  excellent  essay  by  Hundeshagen,  Zur  Characteristik  Ulrich 
Zwinglis  u  seines  Rejormationswerkes  unter  Vergleichung  mit  Luther  und  Calvin. 
Studien  u.  Kritiken,  1862,  4. 

^  Of  his  attack  upon  the  system  of  pensions,  his  friend  Myconius  says :  "Hunc 
videbat  tunc  demum  doctrinse  ccelesti  locum  futurum,  ubi  fons  malorum  esset 
exhaustus  omnium." — Vita  Zwinglii,  iv. 


128  THE   REFORMATION 

corruption,  he  resembled  in  his  position,  in  his  mingled  pa- 
triotism and  piety,  the  old  Hebrew  prophets.  "The  Cardinal 
of  Sitten,"  he  said,  "with  right  wears  a  red  hat  and  cloak;  you 
have  only  to  wring  them  and  you  will  behold  the  blood  of  your 
nearest  kinsmen  dripping  from  them!"  He  would  have  the 
Swiss  abstain  from  all  these  dishonorable,  pernicious  alliances. 
The  question  of  priority  as  to  time  between  Luther's  move- 
ment and  that  of  ZwingU  has  often  been  discussed.  Zwingli 
asserted  with  truth  that  his  opinions  concerning  the  authority 
of  the  Scriptures  and  the  method  of  salvation  were  formed 
independently  of  the  influence  of  Luther.  It  is  true  that, 
independently  of  Luther,  Zwingli,  as  early  as  1518,  preached 
against  the  sale  of  indulgences.  But  the  expressions  of  Zwingli 
on  these  topics  were  such  as  might  be  heard  elsewhere  from 
other  good  men.  In  this  matter  he  had  the  support  of  the 
Bishop  of  Constance,  and  did  not  incur  the  displeasure  of  Leo 
X.,  who  had,  perhaps,  learned  moderation  from  the  occurrences 
in  Saxony,  The  great  point  in  Luther's  case  was  his  collision 
with  the  authority  of  the  Church.  It  is  justly  claimed  for 
Luther  that  he  broke  the  path  in  this  momentous  and  perilous 
conflict.  When  Luther  was  put  under  the  ban  of  the  Church, 
Zwingli  was  still  the  recipient  of  a  pension  from  the  Pope.  When 
Luther  at  Worms,  in  the  face  of  the  German  Empire,  refused  to 
submit  to  the  authority  of  Pope  or  Council,  ZwingU  had  not  yet 
been  seriously  attacked.  As  late  as  1523  he  received  a  compli- 
mentary letter  from  Pope  Adrian  VI.  Zwingli  from  the  begin- 
ning was  treated  with  the  utmost  forbearance,  from  the  concern 
of  the  papal  court  for  its  political  and  selfish  interests.  These 
circumstances  involve  nothing  discreditable  to  Zwingli,  when  the 
whole  history  of  his  relations  to  the  Papacy  is  understood.  But 
they  demonstrate  that  the  distinction  of  sounding  the  trumpet 
of  revolt  against  the  Roman  See  belongs  to  the  Saxon  reformer. 
Luther's  voice,  which  was  heard  in  every  country  of  Europe, 
reached  the  valleys  of  Switzerland.  It  was  then  that  Zwingli 
was  charged  by  his  enemies  with  being  a  follower  of  Luther. 
This  he  denied,  at  the  same  time  that  he  avowed  his  agree- 
ment with  Luther  in  the  great  points  of  doctrine,  and  coura- 
geously spoke  of  him  in  terms  of  warm  praise.  But  it  was  the 
noise  of  the  battle  which  Luther  was  waging  that  cjpened  the 
eyes  of  men  to  the  real  drift  of  ZwingH's  teaching. 


THE   EUCHARISTIC   CONTROVERSY  129 

An  unhappy  event  for  the  cause  of  the  Reformation  was 
the  outbreaking  of  the  great  controversy  between  the  Lutherans 
and  the  Swiss  upon  the  Eucharist.  In  1524,  at  the  very  time 
when  the  division  of  Germany  into  two  hostile  parties,  Protes- 
tant and  Cathohc,  was  taking  place,  and  an  armed  conflict  was 
impending,  the  evangelical  forces  were  weakened  by  this  intes- 
tine conflict.*  The  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  is  not  a  doc- 
trine of  the  ancient  Church.  The  view  of  Augustine,  which  was 
that  a  spiritual  power  is  imparted  to  the  bread  and  wine,  analo- 
gous to  the  virtue  supposed  to  inhere  in  the  baptismal  water, 
long  prevailed  in  the  Latin  Church,  even  after  the  more  extreme 
opinion  had  been  broached  by  John  of  Damascus  and  the  Greek 
theologians.  This  is  evident  from  the  effect  that  was  produced 
when  hteral  transubstantiation,  or  the  conversion  of  the  bread 
and  wine  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  was  advocated  in 
the  ninth  century  by  Radbert,  the  Abbot  of  Corvey,  This 
theory  was  opposed  by  his  contemporaries,  Rabanus  Maurus 
and  by  Ratramnus,  who  adhered  to  the  views  of  Augustine. 
The  bread  and  wine  nourish  the  body,  but  the  spiritual  power 
imparted  to  them  —  the  spiritual  body  of  Christ,  of  which  they 
are  the  sign  —  is  received  by  faith  and  nomishes  the  soul  to  an 
immortal  Hfe.  In  the  eleventh  century,  the  view  of  Radbert 
had  so  far  gained  the  ascendency  that  Berengar,  who  defended 
the  more  ancient  theory,  was  condemned,  although  it  was 
claimed  that  his  opinion  was  favored  by  Hildebrand.  Tran- 
substantiation, the  change  of  substance,  was  defended  by  the 
leading  schoolmen  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was  made  an 
article  of  faith  by  the  fourth  Lateran  Council,  in  1215,  under 
Innocent  III. 

The  Reformers,  with  one  accord,  denied  this  dogma,  together 
with  the  associated  doctrine  of  the  sacrificial  character  of  the 
Eucharist.  But  in  other  respects  they  were  not  agreed  among 
themselves.  Luther  affirmed  the  actual,  objective  presence  of 
the  glorified  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  in  connection  with  the 
bread  and  wine,  so  that  the  body  and  blood,  in  some  mysterious 
way,  are  received  by  the  communicant  whether  he  be  a  behever 
or  not.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  two  substances  in  the  sacrament, 
or  what  is  often  styled  consubstantiation.  His  doctrine  in- 
cluded a  belief  in  the  ubiquity  of  the  human  nature  of  the 

'  Ranke,  Deutsch.  Gsch.   ii.   59. 


130  THE   REFORMATION 

ascended  Christ.  Zwingli,  on  the  contrary,  had  come  to  consider 
the  Lord's  Supper  as  having  principally  a  mnemonic  significance, 
as  a  symbol  of  the  atoning  death  of  Christ  and  a  token  or  pledge 
—  as  a  ring  would  be  a  pledge  —  of  its  continual  efficacy.^ 
He  is  present  to  the  contemplative  faith  of  the  communicant. 
A  middle  view,  which  was  that  of  Calvin,  though  suggested  by 
others  before  him,  was  that  of  a  real  but  spiritual  reception  of 
Christ,  by  the  believer  alone,  whereby  there  is  implanted  in 
the  soul  the  germ  of  a  glorified  body  or  form  of  being  hke  that 
of  Christ.  In  this  view  the  elements  are  the  symbol,  the  pledge, 
or  authentication  of  the  grace  of  God  through  the  death  of 
Christ,  and  at  the  same  time  to  the  believer,  though  to  no  other, 
Christ  is  himself  mysteriously  and  spiritually  imparted,  as 'the 
power  of  a  new  life  —  the  power  of  resurrection.  From  the 
human  nature  of  Christ,  which  is  now  exalted  to  heaven,  or  from 
his  flesh,  there  enters  into  the  soul  of  the  believer  a  life-giving 
influence,  so  that  he  is  united  in  the  most  intimate  union  to  the 
Saviour.^ 

The  vehemence  of  Luther's  hostility  to  the  Zwinglian  doc- 
trine is  manifest  in  his  correspondence  for  a  considerable  period 
after  the  rise  of  the  controversy.  There  were  no  terms  of  oppro- 
brium too  violent  for  him  to  apply  at  times  to  the  tenet  and 

1  This  idea  of  a  token  or  pledge,  however,  he  soon  dropped.  Morikofer,  ii. 
197. 

2  Luther  did  not  hold  that  the  heavenly  body  of  Christ,  which  is  offered  and 
received  in  the  sacrament,  occupies  space.  Yet  it  is  received  by  all  who  partake 
of  the  bread  and  wine  —  not  a  portion  of  the  body,  but  the  entire  Christ  by  each 
communicant.  It  is  received,  in  some  proper  sense,  with  the  mouth.  Sometimes 
he  uses  crass  expressions  on  this  point.  See,  for  example,  the  instructions  to 
Melancthon  for  the  conference  with  Bucer  at  Cassel :  "Und  ist  summa  das  unser 
Meinung,  dass  wahrhaftig  in  und  mit  dem  Brod  der  Leib  Christi  gessen  wird, 
also  dass  alles,  was  des  Brod  wirket  und  leidet,  der  Leib  Christi  wirke  und  leide, 
das  er  ausgetheilt,  gessen,  und  mit  den  Zohnen  zubissen  werde. "  De  Wette,  iv. 
572.  He  asserts  that  the  body  of  Christ  is  substantialiter  but  not  localiter  —  as 
extended  or  occupying  space  —  present.  De  Wette,  iv.  573.  Zwingli,  on  the 
contrary,  denied  that  the  body  of  Christ  is  present,  in  any  sense,  in  the  sacra- 
ment. Thus  he  writes  to  Luther  himself  (April,  1527  :  Zwing.  Opera,  viii.  89)  : 
"Nunquam  enim  aliud  obtinebis,  quam  quod  Christi  Corpus  quum  in  coena  cuura 
in  mentibus  piorum  non  aliter  sit,  quam  sola  contemplatione. "  Zwingli  and  his 
followers  were  more  and  more  disposed  to  attach  importance  to  a  spiritual  pres- 
ence of  Christ  in  the  sacrament.  This  Calvin  emphasized  and  added  the  positive 
assertion  of  a  direct  influence  upon  the  believing  communicant,  which  flows  from 
Christ  through  the  medium  or  instrumentality  of  his  human  nature.  His  flesh 
and  blood,  though  locally  separated,  are  really  imparted  to  the  soul  of  the  be- 
liever, as  an  effect  of  his  faith,  by  "the  secret  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Insti- 
tutes, IV.  xvii.  9,  10,  23.  An  able  historical  discussion  by  Julius  Miiller,  entitled 
Vergleichung  der  Lehren  Luthers  und  Calvins  uher  den  h.  Abendmahl,  is  in  Miiller's 
Dogmatische  Abhandlungen,  pp.  404-467- 


THE   EUCHARISTIC   CONTROVERSY  131 

the  persons  of  the  Sacramentarians.  There  were  times  when 
for  special  reasons  —  chiefly  from  the  hope  that  they  were 
coming  over  to  his  opinion  —  his  hostihty  was  sensibly  abated. 
But  his  abhorrence  of  the  Zwinglian  doctrine  never  left  him. 
The  reasons  that  misled  him  into  what  struck  those  who  differed 
from  him  as  an  intolerant  and  uncharitable  course  of  conduct  it 
is  not  impossible  to  discover.  The  obnoxious  theory  was  first 
proposed  by  Carlstadt,  an  enthusiast  and  fanatic  who  had  given 
Luther  infinite  trouble,  and  it  was  defended  by  him  through 
a  weak  device  of  exegesis.  It  was  associated  in  Luther's  mind 
with  the  extreme  spiritualism,  or  the  subjective  tendency, 
which  undervalued  and  tended  to  sweep  away  the  objective 
means  of  grace,  the  Word  as  well  as  the  sacraments,  and  to 
substitute  for  them  a  special  illumination  or  inspiration  from 
the  Spirit.^  The  Word  and  the  Sacraments  Luther  had  made 
the  criteria  of  the  Church.  On  upholding  them  in  their  just 
place,  everything  that  distinguished  his  reform  from  enthu- 
siasm or  rationalism  depended.  He  had  never  thought  of  for- 
saking the  dogmatic  system  of  Latin  Christianity  in  its  earlier 
and  purer  days,  and  he  looked  with  alarm  on  what  struck  him 
as  a  visionary  or  rationalistic  innovation.  Besides,  over  and 
above  all  these  considerations,  the  real  objective  presence  of 
Christ  in  his  human  nature,  was  a  belief  that  had  taken  a  deep 
hold  of  his  imagination  and  feelings.  He  had  been  tempted 
to  give  to  the  text  —  "this  is  my  body"  —  a  looser,  more 
figurative  meaning;  but  the  text,  he  declared,  was  too  strong 
for  him.  He  must  take  it  just  as  it  reads.  The  truth  is  that 
his  religious  feelings  were  intertwined  with  the  literal  interpre- 
tation. Being  immovably  and  on  such  grounds  established  in  his 
opinion,  he  would  have  no  fellowship  with  such  as  rejected  it. 
They  denied,  as  he  considered,  an  article  of  the  Christian  faith, 

*  Luther  was  in  the  habit  of  stigmatizing  the  Zwinghans  as  "schwarmer." 
This  seems  at  first  inapposite,  even  as  a  term  of  opprobrium.  But  Luther  would 
hold  fast  to  the  objective  Word  and  the  objective  sacraments.  As  the  truth  was 
in  the  Word  when  it  entered  the  ear  even  of  the  unbeliever ;  as  it  was  the  Word 
of  God,  however  it  might  be  received ;  so  was  Christ  in  the  sacramental  elements, 
whatever  the  beliefs  or  feelings  of  the  recipient  might  be.  The  sacrament  was 
complete,  independently  of  the  character  of  the  recipient,  not  less  than  of  the 
character  of  the  minister.  It  owed  its  completeness  to  the  divine  institution : 
just  as  the  rays  of  the  sun  are  the  same,  whether  they  fall  upon  the  eye  that  can 
see  or  upon  the  blind.  In  a  word,  Luther  felt  strongly  that  the  Zwinglians  at- 
tributed too  much  to  the  subjective  factor,  to  faith,  and  thus  sacrificed  the  grand 
objective  character  of  the  means  of  grace  —  doing  by  the  sacraments  what  the 
enthusiasts  did  by  the  Scriptures. 


132  THE  REFORMATION 

a  precious  fact  of  Christian  experience.  The  union  of  the  be- 
Uever  with  Christ  —  the  unio  mystica  —  is  a  theme  on  which 
he  has  written  more  impressively,  perhaps,  than  upon  any 
other  topic  of  Christian  doctrine/  Philosophical  objections 
counted  for  nothing  with  him  against  the  intuitions  of  the 
ethical  or  religious  nature.  He  was  profoundly  sensible  that 
the  truths  of  reUgion  transcend  the  Umits  of  the  understanding. 
Difficulties  raised  by  the  mere  understanding,  in  however  plaus- 
ible form  they  might  be  presented,  he  considered  to  be  really 
superficial.  Yet,  in  defending  his  own  view  he  sometimes  con- 
descended to  fight  with  weapons  of  philosophy  which  he  had 
drawn  in  earlier  days  from  the  tomes  of  Occam. 

Of  course  the  most  urgent  exertions  would  be  made  to  heal 
a  schism  that  threatened  to  breed  great  disasters  to  the  Protes- 
tant cause.  Not  only  was  it  a  scandal  of  which  the  Roman 
Catholic  party  would  only  be  too  happy  to  make  an  abundant 
use,  but  it  distracted  the  counsels  and  tended  to  paralyze  the 
physical  strength  of  the  Protestant  interest.  The  theologian 
who  was  most  industrious  in  the  work  of  bringing  about  a  union, 
was  Martin  Bucer,  who  from  his  position  at  Strasburg  was  well 
situated  with  reference  to  both  of  the  contending  parties,  and 
who  was  uncommonly  ingenious  at  framing  compromises,  or 
at  devising  formulas  sufficiently  ambiguous  to  cover  dissonant 
opinions.  Rude  and  violent  though  Luther  sometimes  was,  he 
was  always  utterly  honest  and  outspoken,  and  for  this  reason 
proved  on  some  occasions  unmanageable;  and  Zwingli,  earnest 
as  was  his  desire  for  peace,  was  too  sincere  and  self-respecting 
to  hide  his  opinion  under  equivocal  phraseology.  At  least,  when 
it  was  openly  attacked,  he  would  as  openly  stand  for  its  defense. 
Of  the  princes  who  were  active  in  efforts  to  pacify  the  opposing 
schools  and  bring  them  upon  some  common  ground,  Philip, 
the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  was  the  most  conspicuous.  The  most 
memorable  attempt  of  this  sort  was  the  conference  at  Marburg 
in  1529,  where  the  Swiss  theologians  met  Luther  and  Melancthon. 
The  former  accommodated  themselves  to  the  views  of  the 
Lutherans  on  the  subject  of  original  sin,  and  on  some  other 
points  respecting  which  their  orthodoxy  had  been  questioned. 
The   only  point  of   difference  was  the  Eucharist;   but  here 

'  Passages  from  Luther  on  this  subject  may  be  read  in  Dorner,  Entwickelunga 
gesch.  d.  Lehre  v.  d.  Person  Christ.,  ii.  510  seq. 


THE   EUCHARISTIC  CONTROVERSY  133 

the  difference  proved  irreconcilable.  The  Landgrave  arranged 
that  private  conferences  should  first  be  held  between  fficolam- 
padius  and  Luther,  and  between  Melancthon  and  ZwingU; 
ZwingU  and  Luther  being  thus  kept  apart,  and  each  put  by  the 
side  of  a  theologian  of  mild  and  conciliatory  temper.  But  the 
experiment  was  fruitless.  No  more  could  an  agreement  be 
reached  when  all  were  assembled  with  the  Landgrave  and  a 
select  company  of  spectators.  The  theologians  sat  by  a  table, 
the  Saxons  on  one  side  and  the  Swiss  opposite  them.  Luther 
wrote  with  chalk  on  the  table  his  text  —  "hoc  est  meum  corpus" 

—  and  refused  to  budge  an  iota  from  the  Uteral  sense.  But 
his  opponents  would  not  admit  the  actual  presence  of  the  body 
of  Christ  in  the  sacrament,  or  that  his  body  is  received  by  un- 
beUevers.  The  citations  of  Zwingli  in  answer  to  Luther's 
iteration  of  his  solitary  proof-text  were  numerous  and  apposite 

—  "I  am  the  true  vine,"  etc.  Finally,  when  it  was  evident  that 
no  common  ground  could  be  reached,  Zwingli,  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  offered  the  hand  of  fraternal  fellowship  to  Luther.  But 
this  Luther  refused  to  take,  not  willing,  says  Ranke,  to  recognize 
them  as  of  the  same  communion.  But  more  was  meant  by  this 
refusal;  Luther  would  regard  the  Swiss  as  friends,  but  such 
was  the  influence  of  his  dogmatic  system  over  his  feelings  that 
he  could  not  bring  himself  to  regard  them  as  Christian  brethren. 
He  said,  "You  have  not  the  same  spirit  as  ours."  Luther  and 
Melancthon  at  this  time  appear  to  have  supposed  that  agree- 
ment in  every  article  of  belief  is  the  import  and  necessary  con- 
dition of  Christian  fellowship.  Both  parties  engaged  to  be 
friendly  to  one  another,  and  to  abstain  from  irritating  and 
abusive  language,  which  had  been  a  source  of  offense  to  both 
in  the  debates.  They  dined  together  in  a  friendly  spirit  with 
the  Landgrave  in  the  castle.  They  signed  in  common  fourteen 
articles  of  faith  relating  to  the  great  points  of  Christian  doctrine, 
and  promised  to  exercise  toward  one  another  all  the  charity 
which  is  consistent  with  a  good  conscience.^  Luther  in  his 
journey  homeward  was  cast  down  in  spirit,  and  himself  —  as 
Zwingli  had  done  —  shed  tears.  In  his  heart  there  was  a  foun- 
tain of  tenderness  that  was  never  wholly  dry.  There  was  a 
considerable  time  during  which  the  sentiments  and  language 

*  Interesting  details   of  the  Conference  may  be  read  in  Simpson's   Life   of 
Zvnngli,  p,  188  seq. ;  also,  in  Jackson,  Huldreich  Zwingli,  p.  306  seq.  (1901). 


134  THE   REFORMATION 

of  Luther  in  relation  to  the  Sacramentarians  were  greatly  soft- 
ened. In  particular  was  this  the  case  while  he  was  at  Coburg 
during  the  sessions  of  the  Diet  of  Augsburg.  The  imperial 
cities  of  Southern  Germany,  by  the  agency  of  the  indefatigable 
Bucer,  although  they  sympathized  with  the  ZwingHan  doctrine, 
were  admitted  to  the  league  of  Smalcald.  In  1536  the  most 
distinguished  theologians  of  Upper  Germany  joined  Luther  and 
his  followers  in  subscribing  to  the  Wittenberg  Concord,  which 
expressed,  with  sHght  reservations,  the  Lutheran  view.  But 
the  Swiss  adherents  of  Zwingli  refused  to  sanction  this  Creed. ^ 
In  1543  the  publication  of  ZwingU's  writings  by  his  son-in-law, 
Gualter,  with  an  apologetic  essay  from  his  pen,  once  more 
roused  the  ire  of  Luther,  and  he  began  again  to  denounce  the 
Zwinghans  and  their  doctrine  in  the  former  vituperative  strain.^ 
We  now  turn  to  the  catastrophe  of  the  Swiss  Reformation. 
There  was  a  growing  hostility  between  the  five  mountain  can- 
tons that  remained  Catholic  and  the  cities  in  which  Protestant- 

*  It  is  asserted  that  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  truly  present,  and  offered 
in  the  sacrament,  and  are  received  even  by  the  "unworthy."  Bucer  distinguished 
between  the  "unworthy"  and  "godless."  On  this  agreement  see  the  article, 
"  Wittenberger  Concordie, "   in  Herzog's  Real-Encycl.,  and  Gieseler,   iii.  iv.  1,  §  7. 

^  The  story  that  Luther,  shortly  before  his  death,  acknowledged  to  Melanc- 
thon  that  he  had  gone  too  far  in  the  sacramental  controversy,  is  given,  for 
example,  by  Christoffel,  i.  331.  It  is  a  fiction  :  see  Galle,  Versuch  einer  Character- 
istik  Melancthons  als  Theologen,  etc.,  p.  433.  Luther  and  Melancthon  depended 
very  much  for  their  information  on  Swiss  affairs  upon  travelers  and  students,  and 
had  an  imperfect  conception  of  the  real  character  of  Zwingli 's  services  to  reform. 
Neither  of  the  disputants  at  Marburg  fully  grasped  the  opinion  of  the  other.  The 
Zwinglians  often  understood  Luther  to  hold  to  a  local  presence,  whereas  the 
Lutheran  doctrine  rests  upon  the  idea  of  a  spiritualizing  of  the  human  nature  of 
Christ,  of  an  effect  wrought  upon  it  by  its  relation  to  Divinity,  so  that  it  no  longer 
fills  space  or  is  fettered  by  spatial  relations.  The  state  of  Luther's  health,  and 
the  particular  circumstances  under  which  he  wrote,  affected  his  tone  respecting 
Zwingli.  There  was  a  certain  bluntness  in  Zwingli  which  was  offensive  to  Luther, 
and  was  interpreted  by  him  as  personal  disrespect.  ZwingU's  letter  to  Luther 
(April,  1527 ;  Zwing.  Opera,  viii.  39),  however  it  may  have  been  provoked,  was 
adapted  to  irritate  the  Saxon  reformer.  Referring  to  it,  Luther  speaks  of  the 
"Helvetica  ferocia  "  of  his  opponent  (to  Spalatin,  May  31,  1527;  De  Wette,  iii. 
182).  In  a  letter  to  Bullinger  (May  14,  1538;  De  Wette,  v.  3),  he  speaks  kindly 
of  Zwingli:  "Libere  enim  dicam ;  Zwinglium,  postquam  Marpurgi  mihi  visus  et 
auditus  est,  virum  optimum  esse  judicavi,  sicut  et  CEcolampadium, "  etc.  He 
speaks  of  the  grief  he  had  experienced  at  ZwingU's  death.  But  when  his  dis- 
pleasure was  excited,  he  wrote  in  a  different  spirit.  See,  for  example,  a  letter  to 
Wenc.  Link  (January  3,  1532;  De  Wette,  iv.  331).  But  Zwingli,  in  the  Fidei 
Ratio,  —  the  creed  which  he  presented  at  Augsburg, — had  described  Luther's 
opinion  as  the  tenet  of  those  "who  look  back  to  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt":  "Qui 
adoUas  ^gyptiacas  respectant" — an  aspersion  as  unjust  as  it  was  irritating 
{Rat.  Fid.,  8).  Luther's  latest  ebullition,  occasioned  by  the  intelligence  that  the 
Swiss  were  denouncing  him,  is  in  a  letter  to  Jac.  Probst  (January  17,  1546 ;  De 
Wette,  V,  777.) 


DEATH   OF   ZWINGLI  135 

ism  had  been  established.  The  Protestant  cause  was  making 
progress  in  other  parts  of  Switzerland.  The  Catholic  cantons 
entered  into  a  league  with  Ferdinand  of  Austria.  Protestant 
preachers  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Catholics  were  put  to 
death.  The  new  doctrine  was  suppressed  within  their  limits. 
The  districts  that  belonged  in  common  to  the  several  cantons 
furnished  the  occasion  for  bitter  controversy.  At  length  Zurich 
took  up  arms,  and  without  bloodshed  forced  the  five  cantons 
to  tear  up  the  compact  with  Austria,  to  concede  that  each  gov- 
ernment should  be  free  to  decide  for  itself  upon  the  religious 
question,  and  to  pay  the  costs  of  the  projected  war.  Peace  was 
concluded  when  both  parties  were  in  the  field,  face  to  face.  The 
behavior  of  the  five  cantons,  however,  was  not  improved.  Their 
threatening  attitude  led  Zurich  to  form  alliances  with  the  city 
of  Strasburg  and  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse.  The  force  of  the 
Protestants,  apart  from  foreign  help,  was  greater  than  that  of 
their  adversaries.  Zwingli  recommended  bold  measures.  He 
thought  that  the  constitution  of  the  Swiss  Confederacy  should 
be  changed,  so  that  the  preponderance  might  be  given  to  the 
cities  where  it  justly  belonged,  and  taken  from  the  mountain 
districts  which  had  so  shamefully  misused  their  power.  The 
chief  demands  that  were  really  made,  were  that  the  Protestant 
doctrine,  which  was  professed  in  the  lower  cantons,  should  be 
tolerated  in  the  upper,  and  that  persecution  should  cease  there. 
But  the  question  was  whether  even  these  demands  would  be 
enforced.  Zwingli  with  reason  distrusted  the  pledges  of  the 
Catholic  cantons,  and  was  in  favor  of  overpowering  the  enemy 
by  a  direct  attack,  and  of  extorting  from  them  just  concessions. 
But  he  was  overruled,  and  half-measures  were  resorted  to.  The 
attempt  was  made  to  coerce  the  Catholic  cantons  by  non-inter- 
course, thus  cutting  off  their  supplies.  The  effect  was  that  the 
Catholics  were  enabled  to  collect  their  strength,  while  the 
Protestant  cities  were  divided  by  jealousies  and  by  disagreement 
as  to  what  might  be  the  best  policy  to  adopt.  Zurich  was  left 
without  help  to  confront,  with  hasty  and  inadequate  prepara- 
tion, the  combined  strength  of  the  Catholic  party.  The  Zurich 
force  was  defeated  at  Cappel,  on  the  11th  of  October,  1531, 
and  Zwingli,  who  had  gone  forth  as  a  chaplain  with  his  people 
to  battle,  fell.  He  had  anticipated  defeat  from  the  time  when 
his  counsels  were  disregarded,  and  he  had  found  it  impossible 


136  THE   REFORMATION 

to  bring  the  magistrates  of  Berne  to  a  resolution  to  act  with 
decision.  In  the  thick  of  the  fight,  he  raised  his  voice  to  en- 
courage his  companions,  but  made  no  use  of  his  weapons/  As 
he  received  his  mortal  wound,  he  exclaimed:  "What  evil  is 
this?  they  can  kill  the  body,  but  not  the  soul!"  ^  As  he  lay, 
still  breathing,  on  the  field,  but  with  his  hands  folded  and  his 
eyes  directed  to  heaven,  one  or  more  brutal  soldiers  asked  him 
to  confess  to  a  priest,  or  to  call  on  Mary  and  the  saints.  He 
shook  his  head  in  token  of  refusal.  They  knew  not  to  whom 
they  were  speaking,  but  only  that  he  was  a  heretic,  and  with  a 
single  sword-thrust  put  an  end  to  his  life.^  Notwithstanding 
this  defeat,  the  party  of  the  reformed  might  have  retrieved  their 
cause.  But  they  lacked  union  and  energy.  Zurich  and  Berne 
concluded  a  humiliating  peace,  the  effect  of  which  was  to  inflict 
a  serious  check  upon  the  Protestant  interest  and  to  enable  the 
Catholics  to  repossess  themselves  of  portions  of  the  ground 
which  they  had  lost. 

The  menace  addressed  by  the  Catholic  majority  at  the  Diet 
of  Augsburg  to  the  Protestants  led  to  the  formation  of  the 
Protestant  Defensive  League  of  Smalcald,  to  which  the  four 
imperial  cities  of  South  Germany  that  held  the  Zwinglian  opin- 
ions, but  were  now  disconnected  from  the  confederacy  of  their 
Swiss  brethren,  were  admitted  in  1531.  The  Imperial  Chamber 
had  been  purged  by  the  exclusion  of  all  who  were  supposed  to 
sympathize  with  the  new  opinions.  This  tribunal  was  to  be 
made  the  instrument  of  a  legal  persecution.  The  Emperor 
procured  the  election  of  his  brother  as  Roman  King,  in  a  manner 
which  involved  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  Electors,  and  was 
adapted  to  excite  the  apprehensions  of  the  Protestants.*  The 
Wittenberg  theologians  waived  their  opposition  to  the  project 
of  withstanding  the  Emperor.  Luther  took  the  ground  that, 
while  as  Christians,  they  ought  not  to  resort  to  force,  yet  the 
rights  and  duties  of  the  princes  in  reference  to  the  Emperor  were 
a  political  question  for  jurists  to  determine,  and  that  Christians, 

>  Morikofer,  ii.  417.  ^  Myconius,  xii. 

*  The  death  of  Zwingli  is  described  with  touching  simplicity  by  his  successor 
at  Zurich,  BuUinger,  Reformationsgeschichte  (Zuricli  ed.,  1838),  iii.  136. 

*  Ranke,  iii.  220  seq.  The  "King  of  the  Romans"  was  the  title  of  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  Emperor  during  the  hfetime  of  the  latter,  and  of  the  latter  prior 
to  his  coronation  at  Rome.     See  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire,  p.  404. 


PROTESTANT   AND   CATHOLIC   LEAGUES  137 

as  members  of  the  state,  were  bound  to  take  up  arms  in  defense 
of  their  princes,  when  these  are  unlawfully  assaulted.  The 
political  situation  for  ten  years  after  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  was 
such  as  not  only  to  disable  Charles  from  the  forcible  execution 
of  its  decree,  but  also  such  as  to  favor  the  progress  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  League  of  Smalcald,  strengthened  by  a  tem- 
porary alliance  with  the  Dukes  of  Bavaria  and  by  treaties  with 
France  and  Denmark,  was  too  formidable  to  be  attacked.  The 
irruption  of  the  Turks  under  Soliman  was  another  insuperable 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  repressive  policy.  Hence,  in  1532, 
"the  peace  of  Nuremberg"  provided  that  religious  affairs 
should  be  left  unchanged,  until  they  could  be  adjusted  by  a 
new  Diet,  or  by  a  new  Council.  Such  a  Council  the  Protestants 
had  demanded  at  Augsburg  and  Charles  had  promised  to  pro- 
cure. Notwithstanding  the  disturbance  produced  by  the  Ana- 
baptist communists  at  Miinster,  the  Reformation  advanced 
with  rapid  strides.  The  Protestant  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg  was 
reestablished  in  his  possessions  by  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  in 
1534.  Brandenburg  and  ducal  Saxony,  by  the  death  of  the 
Elector  and  of  the  Duke,  became  Protestant.  Catholic  princes 
were  beginning  to  grant  religious  liberty  to  their  subjects.  The 
war  with  France,  which  broke  out  in  1536,  rendered  it  impos- 
sible for  the  Emperor  to  hinder  this  progress.  The  Smalcald 
League  was  extended  by  the  accession  of  more  princes  and 
cities.  The  Protestants  refused  to  comply  with  the  summons 
to  a  Council,  in  which,  by  the  terms  of  the  invitation,  their 
condemnation  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Alarmed  at  the 
growing  strength  of  Protestantism,  the  leading  Catholic  estates 
united  in  a  Holy  League  at  Nuremberg,  in  1538,  which,  like 
the  League  of  Smalcald,  was  ostensibly  for  defense.^    The  next 

•  The  cause  of  the  Reformation  was  weakened  by  the  discord  of  Protestant 
princes,  especially  of  the  Elector  and  Duke  Maurice.  It  suffered  still  more  in 
consequence  of  the  "dispensation"  which  Luther  and  Melancthon  granted  the 
Landgrave  of  Hesse,  which  allowed  him  to  contract  a  second  marriage  without 
being  divorced  from  his  wife,  who  had  become  repugnant  to  him  on  account  of 
her  bodily  disorders  and  personal  habits.  To  this  plan  his  wife  consented.  As 
they  ceased  to  live  together,  the  conscience  of  Philip  was  worried  by  his  yielding 
to  sensual  temptation.  Both  Luther  and  Melancthon  had  held  that  polygamy 
was  not  absolutely  —  with  no  exception  —  forbidden  in  the  New  Testament. 
They  agreed,  and  Bucer  with  them  concurred,  under  the  circumstance,  in  approv- 
ing of  the  second  marriage  of  the  Landgrave  without  a  divorce.  It  must  be 
treated  as  an  exception  to  the  rule  and  kept  a  secret.  Luther  regarded  his  rela- 
tion to  the  fact  as  the  same  as  that  of  a  priest  in  the  confessional,  bound  not  to 
reveal  what  he  learns  there.     Philip,  he  held,  was  under  an  equal  obligation  not 


138  THE   REFORMATION 

three  years  are  marked  by  efforts  to  secure  peace,  of  which  the 
Conference  and  Diet  of  Ratisbon,  in  1541,  is  the  most  remark- 
able. On  this  occasion  the  Pope  was  represented  by  his  Legate, 
Contarini,  who  held  a  view  of  justification  not  dissimilar  to  that 
of  the  Protestants,  and  was  ready  to  meet  Melancthon  half- 
way on  the  path  of  concession.  In  these  negotiations  an  actual 
agreement  was  attained  in  the  statement  of  four  doctrinal 
points,  which  embraced  the  subjects  of  the  nature  of  man, 
original  sin,  redemption,  and  justification;  but  upon  the  Church, 
sacraments,  and  kindred  topics,  it  was  found  that  no  concord 
was  attainable.  The  King  of  France,  from  the  selfish  purpose 
to  thwart  the  effort  for  union,  with  others  on  the  Catholic  side 
who  were  actuated  by  different  motives,  complained  of  the  con- 
cessions that  had  been  made  by  the  Catholic  party;  and  Con- 
tarini was  checked  by  orders  from  the  Pope.  The  Elector  of 
Saxony  was  equally  dissatisfied  with  the  proceedings  of  Me- 
lancthon, and  together  with  Luther,  who  regarded  the  hope  of 
a  compromise  as  wholly  futile,  and  as  inspired  by  Satan,  was 
gratified  when  the  abortive  conference  was  brought  to  an  end. 
The  necessity  of  getting  help  at  once  against  the  Turks  com- 
pelled Charles  once  more  to  sanction  the  peace  of  Nuremberg 
with  additional  provisions  to  the  advantage  of  the  Protestants. 
His  unsuccessful  expedition  against  Algiers,  in  1541,  and  the 
renewed  war  with  France,  together  with  the  Turkish  war  in 
which  his  brother  Ferdinand  was  involved,  obliged  the  latter, 
at  a  Diet  at  Spires  in  1542,  to  grant  a  continuance  of  the  reli- 
gious peace.  The  imperial  declaration  at  Ratisbon  was  ratified 
by  the  Diet  of  Spires,  held  in  1544.  The  prospects  of  the  Prot- 
estant cause  had  been  bright.     For  a  time  it  seemed  probable 

to  disclose  the  fact.  Margaret  whom  he  married  was  his  "wife  before  God  and 
not  before  the  worid."  Luther  did  not  adopt  the  "mental  reservation"  theory 
of  Roman  casuists,  or  the  theory  of  "venial"  sins.  This  "double  marriage" 
brought  reproach  upon  the  reformers  and  carried  with  it  political  consequences 
that  were  disastrous.  Melancthon  himself,  after  the  secret  nuptials,  was  a  prey 
to  anxiety,  and,  at  Weimar,  was  attacked  with  illness  so  severe  that  his  recovery 
was  due  to  Luther's  energetic  sympathy.  See  Ranke,  iv.  186  seq.  Unfounded 
charges  against  Luther  in  connection  with  this  unhappy  event,  by  Protestant 
as  well  as  Catholic  writers,  —  for  example,  that  he  was  actuated  by  a  selfish  regard 
for  the  interests  of  the  Protestant  party ;  that  he  was  in  favor  of  polygamy,  etc., 
—  are  exposed  by  Hare,  Vindication  of  Luther,  etc.,  p.  225  seq.  The  transaction 
is  fully  narrated  by  Seckendorf,  iii.  sect.  21,  Ixxix.  See,  also,  Rommel,  Philip  d. 
Grossmuthige,  i.  436,  ii.  409.  Full  statements  of  the  historical  facts  are  given 
in  Pru-ssian  State  Archives,  5th  vol.;  Correspondence  of  Philip  with  Bucer ;  and, 
especially,  by  W.  W.  Rockwell,  Die  Doppdehe  des  Landgrafen  Philipp  (1904). 


LAST   DAYS   OF   LUTHER  139 

that  all  Germany  would  adopt  the  new  faith.  But  the  League  of 
Smalcald  was  grievously  weakened  by  internal  dissension.  The 
cities  complained  of  arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  Elector  of 
Saxony  and  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse;  for  example,  in  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  from  his  land,  a  measure  that 
brought  them  into  conflict  with  the  imperial  court.  But  the 
fatal  event  was  the  hostility  of  Maurice,  Duke  of  Saxony,  to 
the  Elector,  which  rested  on  various  grounds,  and  which  had 
once  before  brought  them  to  the  verge  of  war ;  and  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  League  by  Maurice,  in  1542.  He  had  married  the 
daughter  of  Philip  of  Hesse,  but  he  wanted  to  enlarge  his  terri- 
tory, and  he  coveted  the  title  and  rank  of  his  neighbor  and 
cousin.  His  interest  in  the  Lutheran  cause  was  more  than 
balanced  by  his  hope  of  advantage  from  the  friendship  of  Charles. 
The  Elector  of  Brandenburg  had  not  joined  the  League,  and 
was  followed  in  this  course  by  the  old  Elector  Palatine,  who 
adopted  the  Reformation  in  1545.  The  Emperor  forced  France 
to  conclude  the  peace  of  Crespy,  in  1544.  At  the  Diet  of  Worms 
in  March,  1545,  the  Protestants  refused  to  take  part  in  the 
Council  of  Trent.  The  hostility  of  the  Elector  to  Maurice  pre- 
vented the  formation  of  a  close  alliance  between  the  two  Saxonies 
and  Hesse.  Maurice,  so  adroit  and  aspiring  a  politician,  loving 
power  more  than  he  valued  his  faith,  at  length  made  his  bar- 
gain with  Charles,  and  engaged  to  unite  with  him  in  making 
war  upon  the  Elector,  whose  territories  Maurice  coveted,  and 
upon  the  Landgrave,  the  two  princes  whom  the  Emperor  pro- 
fessed to  attack,  not  on  religious  grounds,  but  as  offenders 
against  the  laws  and  peace  of  the  Empire.  While  the  Emperor 
was  dallying  with  the  Protestants  that  he  might  prepare  to 
strike  a  more  effective  blow,  Luther  died  at  Eisleben,  the  place 
of  his  birth,  on  the  18th  of  February,  1546.  His  last  days  were 
not  his  best.  His  health  was  undermined,  and  he  suffered 
grievously  from  various  disorders,  especially  from  severe,  con- 
tinuous headache.  He  was  oppressed  with  a  great  variety  of 
little  employments  relating  to  public  and  private  affairs,  so  that 
going  one  day  from  his  writing  table  to  the  window  he  fancied 
that  he  saw  Satan  mocking  him  for  having  to  consume  his  time 
in  useless  business.^    His  intellectual  powers  were  not  enfeebled. 

*  "Here  to-day  have  I  been  pestered  with  the  knaveries  and  lies  of  a  baker 
brought  before  me  for  using  false  weights ;  though  such  matters  concern  the 
magistrate  rather  than  the  di\nne.  Yet,  if  no  one  were  to  check  the  thefts  of 
these  bakers,  we  should  have  a  fine  state  of  things. "  —  Tischreden. 


140  THE   REFORMATION 

His  religious  trust  continued  firm  as  a  rock.  His  courage 
and  his  assurance  of  the  ultimate  victory  of  the  truth  never 
faltered.  But  he  lost  the  cheerful  spirits,  the  joyous  tone,  that 
had  before  characterized  him.  He  took  dark  views  of  the 
wickedness  of  the  times  and  of  society  about  him.  He  was 
weary  of  the  world,  weary  of  life,  and  longed  to  be  released  from 
its  burdens.  He  was  old,  he  said,  useless,  a  cumberer  of  the 
ground,  and  he  wanted  to  go.  His  disaffection  with  Witten- 
berg, on  account  of  what  he  considered  the  laxness  of  family 
government  and  reprehensible  fashions  in  respect  to  dress,  was 
such  that  he  determined  to  quit  the  place,  and  he  was  dissuaded 
only  by  the  united  intercessions  of  the  Elector,  and  of  the 
authorities  of  the  University  and  of  the  town.  He  fell  into  a 
conflict  with  the  jurists  on  account  of  their  declaration  that  the 
consent  of  parents  is  not  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  validity 
of  a  marriage  engagement,  and  he  attacked  them  publicly  from 
the  pulpit.* 

The  friendship  of  Luther  and  Melancthon  was  not  broken, 
but  partially  chilled  in  consequence  of  theological  differences. 
There  were  two  points  on  which  Melancthon  swerved  from 
his  earlier  views.  From  the  time  of  the  controversy  of 
Luther  and  Erasmus,  Melancthon  had  begun  to  modify  his 
ideas  of  predestination,  and  to  incline  to  the  view  that  was 
afterwards  called  Synergism,  which  gives  to  the  will  an  active 
though  a  subordinate,  receptive  agency  in  conversion.  On 
this  subject,  however,  the  practical,  if  not  the  theoretical,  views 
of  Luther  were  also  modified,  as  is  evident  from  the  letters 
which  he  wrote  in  reply  to  perplexed  persons  who  applied  to 
him  for  counsel.  The  difference  on  this  subject  between  him 
and  Melancthon,  if  one  existed,  occasioned  no  breach.  It  was 
not  until  after  Luther's  death  that  his  followers  made  this  a 
ground  of  attack  on  Melancthon  and  the  subject  of  a  theological 
contest.  But,  on  the  Lord's  Supper,  the  matter  on  which 
Luther  was  most  sensitive,  Melancthon's  view,  from  about  the 
time  of  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  began  to  deviate  from  his  former 
opinion.  The  spell  which  Luther  had  cast  over  him  in  his 
youth  was  broken;   and,  influenced  by  the  arguments  of  (Eco- 

•  Galle,  p.  139.  Luther  writes  to  Spalatin  that  in  his  whole  life  and  in  all 
his  labors  for  the  Gospel,  he  had  never  had  more  anxiety  than  during  that  year 
(1544).     De  Wette,  v.  626. 


LUTHER   AND   MELANCTHON  141 

lampadius  and  by  his  own  independent  study  of  the  Fathers, 
he  really  embraced,  in  his  own  mind,  the  Calvinistic  doctrine, 
which  was,  in  substance,  the  opinion  advocated  by  (Ecolam- 
padius  and  Bucer.  Melancthon  still  rejected  the  Zwinglian 
theory  which  made  Christ  in  the  sacrament  merely  the  object 
of  the  contemplative  act  of  faith;  but  the  other  hypothesis 
of  a  real  but  spiritual  reception  of  Him,  in  connection  with  the 
bread  and  wine,  satisfied  him.  Melancthon's  reserve  and 
anxiety  to  keep  the  peace  could  not  wholly  veil  this  change  of 
opinion;  and  persons  were  not  wanting,  of  whom  Nicholas 
Amsdorf  was  the  chief,  to  excite  as  far  as  they  could,  the  jealousy 
and  hostility  of  Luther.  The  result  was  that  the  confidential 
intimacy  of  the  two  men  was  interrupted.  For  several  years 
Melancthon  lived  in  distress  and  in  daily  expectation  of  being 
driven  from  his  place.^  "Often,"  he  says,  writing  in  Greek  as 
he  frequently  did  when  he  wanted  to  express  something  which 
he  was  afraid  to  divulge  —  "  Often  have  I  said  that  I  dreaded 
the  old  age  of  a  nature  so  passionate,  like  that  of  Hercules,  or 
Philoctetes,  or  the  Roman  General,  Marius."  ^  In  remarks  of 
this  sort  he  referred,  as  he  explained  later,  to  the  vehemence 
common  to  men  of  a  heroic  make.'  Yet,  in  previous  years 
none  had  been  more  just  and  forbearing  in  reference  to  the 
undue  tendency  to  concession  and  compromise  on  the  part  of 
Melancthon  than  Luther.  For  the  change  in  their  relations, 
the  fear  and  consequent  reserve  and  shyness  of  the  one  were 
not  less  responsible  than  the  imperious  disposition  of  the  other. 
It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Luther  lost  his  confidence 
and  love  towards  his  younger  associate;  for  expressions  of 
Luther,  in  his  very  last  days,  prove  the  contrary.  It  would 
be  an  error,  likewise,  to  suppose  that  Melancthon  ever  came  to 
regard  him  as  other  than  one  of  the  foremost  of  men,  a  hero, 
endowed  with  noble  and  admirable  qualities  of  heart  as  well 
as  mind.  But  the  original  contrariety  in  the  temperament  of 
the  two  men,  joined  to  infirmities  of  character  in  Luther,  which 

>  Corpus  Ref.,  v.  474.  Galle,  p.  142.  A  letter  of  Melancthon  to  Carlowitz, 
the  Councilor  of  Duke  Maurice  (Corpus  Ref.,  vi.  879),  written  just  after  the  close 
of  the  Smalcaldic  War,  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  <pi\oveiKla  of  Luther,  affords 
proof  of  the  uncomfortable  relations  in  which  he  had  stood  with  the  strictly 
Lutheran  Court  of  the  Elector.  This  letter,  which  was  written,  says  Ranke, 
at  an  unguarded  moment,  gave,  under  the  circumstances,  just  offense  to  those 
who  cherished  the  memory  of  Luther.     See  the  remarks  of  Ranke,  iv.  53. 

»  Corpus  Ref.,  v.  310.     Galle,  p.  140.  '  Galle,  p.  149. 


142  THE   REFORMATION 

were  aggravated  by  long  years  of  strenuous  combat  and  labor 
and  by  disease,  had  the  effect  to  cloud  for  a  while  their  mutual 
sympathy  and  cordiality  of  intercourse.  But  the  great  soul 
of  Luther  shines  out  in  the  last  letters  he  wrote  —  several  of 
them  affectionate  epistles  to  Melancthon  —  and  in  the  last  ser- 
mons he  preached  at  Eisleben;  where,  within  a  few  rods  of 
the  house  in  which  he  was  born,  full  of  faith  and  of  peace,  he 
breathed  his  last.  "He  is  gone,"  said  Melancthon  to  his  stu- 
dents, "the  chariot  of  Israel  and  the  horsemen  thereof,  who 
ruled  the  Church  in  these  last  troubled  times."  In  the  course 
of  the  funeral  address  which  Melancthon  pronounced  over  the 
grave  beneath  the  pulpit  where  the  voice  of  Luther  had  so  long 
been  heard,  he  referred  to  the  complaint  made  against  Luther's 
excessive  vehemence,  and  quoted  the  frequent  remark  of  Eras- 
mus, that  "God  has  given  to  this  last  time,  on  account  of  the 
greatness  of  its  diseases,  a  sharp  physician."  With  grief  and 
tears,  he  said,  that  choked  his  utterance,  he  set  forth  the  grand 
labors  of  Luther,  the  kindness,  geniahty,  and  dignity  of  his  char- 
acter, his  freedom  from  personal  ambition,  the  wisdom  and 
sobriety  that  were  mingled  with  his  irresistible  energy  as  a 
reformer.  If  even  in  this  address,  and  still  more  in  subsequent 
letters  of  Melancthon,  traces  of  a  partial  estrangement  may  be 
detected  in  his  tone,  the  effect  is  only  a  discriminating  instead 
of  a  blind  admiration  of  one  with  whom  he  was  connected  by 
an  indissoluble  bond  of  love.^ 

Luther,  whatever  deduction  from  his  merit  may  be  made 
on  the  score  of  faults  and  infirmities,  was  one  of  those  extraor- 
dinary men  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  in  no  spirit  of  hero-worship, 
but  in  sober  truth,  that  their  power,  as  manifested  in  history, 
can  only  be  compared  to  that  of  the  great  permanent  forces 
of  nature.  "  He  is  one  of  those  great  historical  figures  in  which 
whole  nations  recognize  their  own  type."  ^  A  lifelong  opponent 
of  Protestantism,  one  of  the  first  Roman  Catholic  scholars  of  the 
last  century,  said  of  him :  "  It  was  Luther's  overpowering  great- 
ness of  mind  and  marvelous  many-sidedness  which  made  him  to 
be  the  man  of  his  time  and  of  his  people ;  and  it  is  correct  to  say 
that  there  never  has  been  a  German  who  has  so  intuitively 
understood  his  people,  and  in  turn  has  been  by  the  nation  so 
perfectly  comprehended,  I  might  say,  absorbed  by  it,  as  this 

'  Galle,  pp.   144,   145.  ^  Dorner,  Hist,  of  Prot.  Theology,  i.  81. 


POWER   OF   LUTHER  143 

Augustinian  monk  at  Wittenberg.  Heart  and  mind  of  the  Ger- 
mans were  in  his  hand  like  the  lyre  in  the  hand  of  the  musician. 
Moreover,  he  has  given  to  his  people  more  than  any  other  man 
in  Christian  ages  has  ever  given  to  a  people :  language,  manual 
for  popular  instruction,  Bible,  hymns  of  worship;  and  every- 
thing which  his  opponents  in  their  turn  had  to  offer  or  to  place 
in  comparison  with  these,  showed  itself  tame  and  powerless  and 
colorless  by  the  side  of  his  sweeping  eloquence.  They  stam- 
mered; he  spoke  with  the  tongue  of  an  orator;  it  is  he  only 
who  has  stamped  the  imperishable  seal  of  his  own  soul,  aUke 
upon  the  German  language  and  upon  the  German  mind;  and 
even  those  Germans  who  abhorred  him  as  the  powerful  heretic 
and  seducer  of  the  nation,  cannot  escape;  they  must  discourse 
with  his  words,  they  must  think  with  his  thoughts."  ^ 

The  Smalcaldic  war  began  in  1546.  Notwithstanding  the 
disadvantageous  situation  of  the  Protestants,  had  the  military 
management  been  good,  they  might  have  achieved  success. 
But  a  spirit  of  indecision  and  inactivity  prevailed.  The  Elec- 
tor, John  Frederic,  drove  from  his  territory  the  forces  of 
Maurice,  but  was  sm-prised,  defeated,  and  captured  by  Charles 
at  Miihlberg,  on  the  24th  of  April,  1547;  and  soon  after  the 
Landgrave  surrendered  himself  and  submitted  to  the  Emperor. 
The  victory  of  Charles  appeared  to  be  almost  complete.  His 
plan  was  to  bring  the  Protestants  once  more  under  the  Catholic 
hierarchy,  and  to  make  them  content  by  the  removal  of  external 
abuses.  His  estimate  of  the  true  character  and  moral  strength 
of  Protestantism  was  always  superficial.  Hence  he  put  forth 
a  provisional  formula  —  called,  after  the  sanction  of  it  by  the 
Diet,  the  Augsburg  Interim  —  at  the  same  time  that  a  scheme 
for  reformation  was  by  his  authority  laid  before  the  German 
bishops,  in  which  changes  were  proposed  in  points  of  external 
order.  The  work  which  he  had  thus  commenced  he  hoped 
that  the  Council  of  Trent  would  complete.  But  this  plan, 
however  promising  it  seemed  to  the  Emperor,  had  to  contend 
not  only  with  the  opposition  of  earnest  Protestants,  but  also 
with  the  discordant  ideas  and  projects  of  the  Pope.  Charles 
had  counted  upon  suppressing  Protestantism  by  the  joint  in- 
fluence of  his  own  power  and  that  of  the  Council.     But  the 

»  Dollinger,  Vortriige,  etc.  (Munich,  1872).  See,  also,  his  earlier  work, 
Kirche  u.  Kirchen  (1861),  p.  386. 


144  THE  REFORMATION 

Council  had  begun  its  work,  not  with  measures  looking  to  a 
reformation,  but  with  the  condemnation  of  the  Protestant  doc- 
trines. Moreover,  Pope  Paul  III.,  although  he  hoped  that 
benefit  would  result  to  the  Church  from  the  Smalcaldic  war, 
dreaded  a  too  absolute  success  on  the  part  of  Charles,  which 
would  render  him  dangerous  in  Italy.  Hence  he  wished  that 
the  Elector  might  hold  out  against  the  Emperor,  and  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  Francis  I.  to  aid  the  former.  He  withdrew  the  ill-dis- 
cipUned  troops  with  which  he  had  furnished  Charles,  and  excited 
the  Emperor's  intense  displeasure  by  removing  the  Council  to 
Bologna.  The  Pope  and  Francis  were  once  more  closely  alUed, 
and  at  work  on  the  Protestant  side  for  the  purpose  of  diminish- 
ing the  power  of  Charles.  The  imperial  bishops  refused  to  leave 
Trent,  and  the  Council  was  rendered  powerless.  The  measures 
undertaken  by  Charles  were,  besides,  considered  by  the  Pope 
and  by  zealous  Catholics  to  be  an  encroachment  upon  his  spirit- 
ual authority,  a  usurpation  of  powers  not  belonging  to  a  secular 
ruler.  In  Southern  Germany  the  acceptance  of  the  Interim 
was  forced  upon  the  Protestant  states  and  cities.  In  Northern 
Germany  it  was  generally  resisted.  The  city  of  Magdeburg 
especially  signalized  itself  by  its  persevering  refusal  to  submit 
to  the  new  arrangements.  Duke  Maurice  modified  the  Interim, 
retaining  the  essential  features  of  the  Lutheran  doctrine,  but 
allowing  CathoUc  rites  and  institutions,  and  thus  framed  the 
Leipsic  Interim.  This  proceeding,  which  was  accompUshed 
by  the  aid  of  Melancthon  and  the  other  Wittenberg  theologians, 
led  to  a  bitter  controversy  in  the  Lutheran  Church  on  the  same 
question  which  came  up  elsewhere  in  connection  with  Puritan- 
ism, whether  these  obnoxious  rites  and  usages  might  be  adopted 
by  the  Church  as  things  morally  indifferent  —  adiaphora  — 
when  the  magistrate  enjoins  them.  Melancthon  incurred  the 
fierce  hostility  of  the  stricter  Lutherans,  and  the  controversy 
was  of  long  continuance.^ 

The  Council  had  been  reassembled  at  Trent  by  Pope  Julius 
III.,  who  was  wholly  favorable  to  the  Emperor.    Protestant 

*  That  Melancthon  went  too  far  in  his  concessions  in  the  period  of  the  Interim, 
is  allowed  by  judicious  friends  of  the  Reformation.  See  Ranke,  v.  48  seq.  It 
should  be  remembered,  however,  in  justice  to  him,  that  in  signing  the  Smalcald 
Articles,  he  had  appended  the  qualification  that  for  himself  he  was  willing,  for 
the  sake  of  unity,  to  admit  a  jure  humano  superiority  of  the  Pope  over  other 
bishops.  See  the  learned  article  "Melancthon,"  by  Landerer,  and  Kirn  in  Hauck, 
Realencyklopadie,  xii.    513. 


THE  DEFEAT  AND  RESCUE  OF  PROTESTANTISM       145 

states  had  entered  into  negotiations  with  it,  and  it  seemed  prob- 
able that  Germany  must  bow  to  its  authority,  when  the  whole 
situation  was  turned  by  the  bold  movement  of  Duke  Maurice 
for  the  rescue  of  the  cause  which  he  had  been  chiefly  instru- 
mental in  crushing.  Notwithstanding  that  Germany  was  in 
appearance  well-nigh  subjugated  to  the  Emperor,  there  were 
powerful  elements  of  opposition.  The  Turks  had  captured 
Tripoli  from  the  Knights  of  St.  John,  and  kindled  anew  the 
flames  of  war  in  Hungary.  Henry  VHI.,  the  King  of  England, 
had  died,  and  been  succeeded  by  Edward  VI.,  by  whom  Prot- 
estantism was  established  in  that  country.  Henry  II.  of  France 
was  uniting  with  the  enemies  of  the  Emperor  in  Italy,  and  in 
September,  1551,  hostiUties  once  more  commenced  between  the 
two  rival  powers.  The  heroic  resistance  of  Magdeburg  had 
stimulated  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Protestants  of  North  Germany. 
The  project  of  Charles  V.  to  make  his  son,  Philip  of  Spain,  his 
successor  to  the  Empire,  had  even  threatened  for  a  time  to  pro- 
duce an  estrangement  between  the  Emperor  and  Ferdinand. 
The  German  princes  were  offended  at  the  preference  given  to 
Spanish  advisers  and  at  personal  slights  which  they  had  suffered. 
The  continued  presence  of  foreign  troops  in  violation  of  the 
Emperor's  promise  at  his  election  was  offensive  to  the  nation, 
Maurice  had  become  an  object  of  general  antipathy  among  those 
whom  he  had  betrayed.  Curses,  loud  as  well  as  deep,  were 
freely  uttered  against  him.  The  sufferings  of  the  good  Elector, 
whom  no  threats  and  no  bribes  could  induce  to  compromise  his 
religious  faith,  and  the  continued  imprisonment  of  the  Landgrave 
against  the  spirit  of  the  stipulations  given  on  the  occasion  of 
his  surrender,  for  the  fulfillment  of  which  Maurice  was  held  to 
be  answerable,  were  not  only  personally  displeasing  to  him,  but 
they  brought  upon  him  increasing  unpopularity.  His  applica- 
tions to  the  Emperor  for  the  release  of  the  Landgrave,  Maurice's 
father-in-law,  had  proved  ineffectual.  The  Spaniards  were 
threatening  that  the  German  princes  should  be  put  down,  and 
intimations  that  Maurice  himself  might  have  to  be  dealt  with 
as  the  Elector  had  been  were  occasionally  thrown  out.  The 
siege  of  Magdeburg  which  Maurice,  who  had  undertaken  to  exe- 
cute the  imperial  ban  against  that  city,  was  languidly  prosecuting 
served  him  as  a  cover  for  military  preparations.  Having  se- 
cured the  cooperation  of  several  Protestant  princes  on  whom 


146  THE  REFORMATION 

he  could  rely;  having  convinced  with  difficulty  the  families  of 
the  captive  princes  that  he  might  be  trusted ;  having,  also,  nego- 
tiated an  alliance  with  Henry  II.,  who  was  to  make  a  diversion 
against  Charles  in  the  Netherlands;  having  come  to  an  imder- 
standing  with  Magdeburg,  which  was  to  serve  as  a  refuge  in 
case  of  defeat;  having  made  these  and  all  other  needful  prepa- 
rations with  profound  secrecy,  he  suddenly  took  the  field,  and 
marching  at  the  head  of  an  army  which  increased  at  every  step 
of  his  advance,  he  crossed  the  Alps,  and  forced  the  Emperor, 
who  was  suffering  from  an  attack  of  the  gout,  to  fly  from  Inns- 
bruck/ This  triumph  was  followed  by  the  treaty  of  Passau. 
Charles  left  his  brother  Ferdinand  to  negotiate  with  the  princes. 
The  demand  of  Maurice  and  of  his  associates  was  that  the  Prot- 
estants should  have  an  assurance  of  toleration  and  of  an  equality 
of  rights  with  the  Catholics,  whether  the  efforts  to  secure  religious 
unanimity  in  the  nation  should  succeed  or  not.  To  this  Ferdi- 
nand gave  his  assent;  but  the  Emperor,  impelled  alike  by  con- 
science and  by  pride,  notwithstanding  his  humiliating  defeat, 
could  not  be  brought  to  concur  in  this  stipulation.  The  Prot- 
estants obtained  the  pledge  of  amnesty,  of  peace,  and  equal 
rights,  until  the  religious  differences  should  be  settled  by  a 
national  assembly  or  a  general  council.  The  captive  princes 
were  set  at  liberty.  Charles  was  obliged  to  see  his  long-cher- 
ished plan  for  the  destruction  of  Protestantism  terminate  in  a 
mortifying  failure.  At  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  in  1555,  the  cele- 
brated ReHgious  Peace  was  concluded.  Every  prince  was  to  be 
allowed  to  choose  between  the  Catholic  religion  and  the  Augs- 
burg Confession,  and  the  religion  of  the  prince  was  to  be  that 
of  the  land  over  which  he  reigned.  The  Catholics  wanted  to 
except  ecclesiastical  princes  from  the  first  article;  the  Protes- 
tants objected  to  the  second.  Finally  the  ecclesiastical  reser- 
vation was  adopted  into  the  treaty,  according  to  which  every 
prelate  on  becoming  Protestant  should  resign  his  benefice;  and 
by  an  accompanying  declaration  of  Ferdinand,  the  subjects 
of  ecclesiastical  princes  were  to  enjoy  religious  liberty.  The 
Imperial  Chamber,  which  had  been  a  principal  instrument  of  op- 
pression in  the  hands  of  the  Catholics,  was  reconstituted  in  such 
a  way  that  the  rights  of  the  Protestants  were  protected.     Charles 

'  Maurice  did  not  capture  Charles :   "He  had  no  cage,"  he  said,  "for  so  large 
a  bird."     Charles  fled  from  Innsbruck  May  19,  1552. 


THE   PEACE   OF   AUGSBURG  147 

took  no  part  personally  in  the  proceedings  which  led  to  the 
religious  peace.  It  involved  a  concession  to  the  adherents  of 
the  Augsburg  Confession  —  the  Uberty  to  practice  their  religion 
without  molestation  or  loss  of  civil  privileges,  whether  a  council 
should  or  should  not  succeed  in  uniting  the  opposing  parties  — 
a  concession  which  he  had  intended  never  to  grant.  But  the 
progress  of  thought  and  the  strength  of  rehgious  convictions 
were  too  mighty  to  be  overcome  by  force.  Mediseval  imperial- 
ism was  obliged  to  give  way  before  the  forces  arrayed  against 
it.  The  abdication  of  Charles,  who  felt  himself  physically 
unequal  to  the  cares  of  his  office,  followed,  and  the  imperial 
station  devolved  on  his  brother  (1556). 

Thus  Protestantism  obtained  a  legal  recognition.  During 
the  next  few  years,  the  Protestant  faith  rapidly  spread  even  in 
Bavaria  and  Austria.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  Ecclesiastical 
Reservation,  says  Gieseler,  all  Germany  would  have  soon  become 
Protestant.^ 

*  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  1,  §  11. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    REFORMATION    IN    THE    SCANDINAVIAN    KINGDOMS,    IN    THE 
SLAVONIC   NATIONS,    AND    IN    HUNGARY 

When  we  inquire  into  the  means  by  which  the  German 
Reformation  extended  itself  into  the  adjacent  countries,  the 
agency  of  the  Germans  who  were  settled  in  these  lands  con- 
stantly appears.  One  is  reminded  of  the  diffusion  of  the  ancient 
Hebrews,  and  of  the  part  taken  by  them  in  opening  a  way  for 
Christianity  beyond  the  bounds  of  Palestine.  Another  very 
conspicuous  instrument  in  the  spread  of  the  Lutheran  doctrine 
was  Wittenberg,  the  renowned  school  to  which  young  men 
were  attracted  out  of  all  the  neighboring  lands.  The  use  of 
Latin  as  a  vehicle  of  teaching  and  as  the  common  language  of 
educated  persons  of  whatever  nationahty  rendered  this  practi- 
cable. But  the  Scandinavians  were  themselves  a  branch  of 
the  great  Teutonic  family,  near  kinsmen  of  the  Germans,  and 
connected  with  them,  besides,  by  the  bonds  of  commercial 
intercourse. 

In  1397  the  three  Scandinavian  kingdoms,  Denmark,  Nor- 
way, and  Sweden,  were  united  by  the  Union  of  Calmar,  in  which 
it  was  provided  that  each  nation  should  preserve  its  laws  and 
institutions,  and  share  in  the  election  of  the  common  sovereign. 
The  result,  however,  was  a  long  struggle  for  Danish  supremacy 
over  Sweden,  When  the  Reformation  in  Germany  began.  Chris- 
tian II.  of  Denmark  was  engaged  in  a  contest  for  the  Swedish 
throne.  In  all  these  countries  the  prelates  were  possessed  of 
great  wealth,  and  very  much  restricted  the  authority  of  the 
sovereign  as  well  as  the  power  of  the  secular  nobles.^ 

Christian  II.  was  surrounded,  in  Denmark,  by  a  body  of 
advisers  who  sympathized  with  the  Lutheran  movement  in 
Saxony.     He  was  himself  disposed  to  depress  the  power  of  the 

'  Miinter,  Kirchengeschichte  v.  Ddnemark  u.  Norwegen,  Th.  iii. ;  Gieseler,  iv. 
i.  c.  2,  §  17;  Geijer,  History  of  the  Swedes;  J.  Weidling,  Schwedische  Geschichte  im 
Zeitalter  d.  Ref.  (1882);  A.  C.  Bang,  Den  Norske  Kirkea  Historic  (1901);  W.  E. 
Collins,  in  Cambridge  Modern  History,  ii.  599  seq. 

148 


THE  REFORMATION   IN   DENMARK  149 

ecclesiastical  and  lay  aristocracy,  and,  for  this  end,  though  not 
without  the  admixture  of  other  and  better  motives,  set  to  work 
to  enlighten  and  elevate  the  lower  classes.  The  encouragement 
of  Protestantism  accorded  with  his  general  poUcy.  In  1520  he 
sent  for  a  Saxon  preacher  to  serve  as  chaplain  at  his  court  and  as 
a  rehgious  instructor  of  the  people,  and  subsequently  invited 
Luther  himself  into  his  kingdom.  He  gained  the  upper  hand 
in  Sweden  and  was  crowned  at  Stockholm,  November  4,  1520. 
At  the  same  time  that  Christian  availed  himself  of  the  papal 
ban  as  a  warrant  for  his  tyranny  and  cruelty  in  Sweden,  he  con- 
tinued in  Denmark  to  promote  the  establishment  of  Protestant- 
ism. In  1521  he  put  forth  a  book  of  laws,  which  contained 
enactments  of  a  Protestant  tendency;  among  them  one  to 
encourage  the  marriage  of  all  prelates  and  priests,  and  another 
for  dispensing  with  all  appeals  to  Rome.^  After  his  sanguinary 
proceedings  against  Sweden,  finding  that  his  crown  was  in  dan- 
ger, he  retracted  his  reformatory  measures,  at  the  instigation  of 
a  papal  legate.  But  he  was  deposed  by  the  prelates  and  nobles 
of  Denmark,  and  his  uncle,  Frederic  I.,  Duke  of  Schleswig  and 
Holstein,  was  made  king,  in  1523. 

Frederic  at  his  accession,  though  personally  inchned  to  Prot- 
estantism, was  obHged  to  pledge  himself  to  the  Danish  magnates 
to  resist  its  introduction  and  to  grant  it  no  toleration.  The 
exiled  Christian  identified  himself  with  the  Protestant  cause, 
though  not  with  constancy;  for  if  the  charge  lacks  proof  that, 
at  Augsburg,  in  1530,  in  order  to  get  the  help  of  the  Emperor,  he 
formally  abjured  the  evangelical  faith,  it  is  true  that  in  1531  he 
promised  to  uphold  the  CathoUc  Church  in  Norway.  He  ren- 
dered a  good  service  by  causing  the  New  Testament  to  be  trans- 
lated into  Danish,  which  was  done  by  two  of  his  nobles.  The 
immediate  occasion  of  the  successful  introduction  of  Lutheranism 
into  Denmark  was  the  active  propagation  of  it  in  the  Duchies 
of  Schleswig  and  Holstein,  where,  in  1524,  Frederic  imposed 
mutual  toleration  on  both  parties.  In  Denmark  itself  the  study 
of  the  Bible  was  encouraged,  a  Biblical  theology  was  inculcated, 
and  ecclesiastical  abuses  censured  by  a  number  of  earnest 
preachers,  among  whom  was  Paul  Elia,  of  Helsingor,  Provincial 
of  the  Carmelites,  who  worked  with  much  effect  in  this  direction, 
although  at  last,  like  Erasmus,  he  chose  to  abide  in  the  old 

*  Miinter,  p.  56  seq. 


150  THE   REFORMATION 

Church,  and  even  turned  his  weapons,  with  a  bitter  antipathy, 
against  the  Reformers.  In  1526  the  King  declared  himself  in 
favor  of  the  Reformation,  the  doctrine  of  which  was  disseminated 
rapidly  in  the  cities.  The  most  zealous  advocate  of  the  new 
doctrine  was  John  Taussen,  sometimes  called  the  Danish  Luther, 
who  studied  at  Wittenberg,  and  after  1524,  in  defiance  of  the 
opposition  of  the  bishops,  preached  Lutheranism  with  marked 
effect.^  The  Danish  nobility  were  favorable  to  the  King's  side, 
from  jealousy  of  the  power  of  the  prelates,  and  the  desire  to 
possess  themselves  of  ecclesiastical  property.  At  the  Diet  of 
Odense,  in  1527,  it  was  ordained  that  marriage  should  be  allowed 
to  the  clergy,  that  Lutheranism  should  be  tolerated,  and  that 
bishops  should  thenceforward  abstain  from  getting  the  pallium 
from  Rome,  but,  when  chosen  by  the  chapter,  should  look  to 
the  King  alone  for  the  ratification  of  their  election.  Converts 
to  Lutheranism  were  made  in  great  numbers.  Wiborg  in  Jut- 
land, and  Malmo  in  Schonen,  were  the  principal  centers,  whence 
the  reformed  faith  was  diffused  over  the  kingdom.  Books  and 
tracts  in  exposition  and  defense  of  it,  as  well  as  the  Bible  in  the 
vernacular  tongue,  were  everj^^^here  circulated.  The  Lutherans 
who,  in  1530,  presented  their  Confession  of  Faith  in  forty-three 
Articles,  acquired  the  preponderance  in  the  land;  but  in  conse- 
quence of  the  pledges  of  Frederic  at  his  accession,  the  bishops 
were  not  deprived  of  their  power.  His  death,  in  1533,  led  to  a 
combined  effort  on  their  part  to  abrogate  the  recent  ecclesiastical 
changes  and  restore  the  exclusive  domination  of  the  old  reUgion. 
They  accordingly  refused  to  sanction  the  election  of  Christian 
III.,  Frederic's  eldest  son,  who  had  been  active  in  establishing 
Protestantism  in  the  Duchies ;  until  their  consent  was  compelled 
by  the  attempt  of  the  Count  of  Oldenburg,  a  Protestant,  to 
restore  the  deposed  Christian  II.,  whom  they  still  more  feared 
and  hated.  By  Christian  III.,  whose  admiration  for  Luther 
had  been  first  kindled  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  where  this  prince 
was  present,  the  authority  of  the  prelates  was  abolished,  at  a 
Diet  at  Copenhagen,  in  1536,  and  the  Reformation  universally 
legalized.  The  bishops  were  forced  to  renounce  their  dignities. 
A  constitution  for  the  Danish  Church  was  framed,  and  submitted 
to  Luther  for  his  sanction.  Bugenhagen,  a  prominent  friend  of 
the  Saxon  Reformer,  came  into  the  kingdom,  on  the  King's  invi- 

'  Pontoppidan,  Annales  Ecd.  Dan.,  ii.  774. 


THE   REFORMATION   IN    DENMARK  151 

tation,  and,  in  1537,  crowned  him  and  his  Queen,  and  perfected 
the  new  ecclesiastical  arrangements.  Bishops,  or  superintend- 
ents, were  appointed  for  the  dioceses,  and  formally  consecrated 
to  their  offices  by  Bugenhagen  himself,  "ut  verus  episcopus," 
as  Luther  expressed  it.  The  University  of  Copenhagen  was 
reorganized,  and  other  schools  of  learning  established  in  the 
various  cities. 

This  final  triumph  of  Protestantism  in  Denmark  was  con- 
nected with  events  of  peculiar  interest  in  the  history  of  the 
Reformation.^  The  Lutheran  doctrine  had  quickly  penetrated 
into  every  place  where  the  German  tongue  was  spoken.  The  cities 
of  Northern  Germany,  the  members  of  the  old  Hanseatic  league, 
gave  it  a  hospitable  reception.  The  strong  burgher  class  in  these 
towns  lent  a  willing  ear  to  the  preachers  from  Wittenberg.  The 
Hansa,  at  the  period  of  its  greatest  prosperity,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  comprised  in  its  confederacy  all  the  maritime  towns  of 
Germany,  together  with  Magdeburg,  Brunswick,  and  other  inter- 
mediate places ;  and  exerted  a  controlling  influence  in  the  Scan- 
dinavian kingdoms.  It  was  weakened  by  the  separation  of  the 
Netherlands,  after  1427.  The  great  value  of  the  trade  of  the 
northern  kingdoms,  of  the  products  of  their  mines  and  fisheries, 
made  it  of  the  highest  importance  to  Liibeck,  the  leading  city 
of  the  Hansa,  to  keep  its  commercial  and  political  supremacy. 
Christian  II.,  the  brother-in-law  of  Charles  V.,  was  withstood 
in  his  attempt  to  subdue  the  northern  nations  by  the  Liibeckers, 
by  whom  Gustavus  Vasa  was  assisted  in  gaining  the  throne  of 
Sweden.  The  cities  which,  like  Hamburg  and  Magdeburg,  had 
a  magistracy  that  was  favorable  to  the  Protestant  doctrine,  re- 
ceived the  new  system  without  any  serious  political  disturbance. 
But  in  some  other  towns,  as  Bremen  and  Liibeck,  the  acceptance 
of  Lutheranism  was  attended  by  changes  in  the  government, 
which  were  effected  by  the  burghers,  and  were  democratic  in 
their  character.  The  new  Burgomaster,  at  Liibeck,  Wullen- 
weber,  whom  the  revolution  had  raised  to  power,  negotiated  a 
treaty  of  alliance  with  the  English  King,  Henry  VIII.;  The 
great  object  of  Liibeck  was  to  keep  the  trade  between  the  Baltic 
and  the  North  Sea  in  its  own  hands.  But  the  situation  in  Den- 
mark, after  the  death  of  Frederic  I.,  was  such  that  Liibeck 
reversed  its  attitude  and  espoused  the  cause  of  the  exiled  King, 

*  See  Ranke,  Deutsch.  Gsch.,  iii.  270  seq.,  406  seq. 


152  THE   REFORMATION 

Christian  II.  The  Liibeckers  found  that  they  could  not  longer 
count  upon  the  cooperation  of  Denmark  in  their  commercial 
policy,  and  that  Christian  III.,  of  Holstein,  could  not  be  enlisted 
in  support  of  their  hostile  undertakings  against  Holland.  Hence, 
they  put  forward  the  Count  of  Oldenburg  as  a  champion  of  the 
banished  sovereign.  Malmo,  Copenhagen,  and  other  cities  of 
Denmark,  as  well  as  Stralsund,  Rostock,  and  other  old  cities  of 
the  Hansa,  at  once  transformed  their  former  municipal  system, 
or  gave  to  it  a  democratic  cast,  and  joined  hands  with  Liibeck 
in  behalf  of  Christian  II.,  whose  measures,  when  he  was  on  the 
throne,  had  looked  to  an  increase  of  the  power  of  the  burgher 
class.  The  confederate  cities  established  their  alliance  with 
England,  and  gained  to  their  side  a  German  prince,  Duke  Albert 
of  Mecklenburg.  This  combination  had  to  be  overcome  by 
Christian  III.,  before  he  could  reign  over  Denmark.  His  ener- 
getic efforts  were  successful ;  and  with  the  defeat  of  Liibeck,  the 
democratic  or  revolutionary  movement,  the  radical  element, 
which  threatened  to  identify  itself  with  the  Reformation,  was 
subdued.  Sweden  contributed  its  help  to  the  attainment  of 
this  result.  Wullenweber  himself  was  brought  to  the  scaffold. 
The  principle  of  Luther  and  his  associates,  that  the  cause  of 
religion  must  be  kept  separate  from  schemes  of  political  or 
social  revolution,  was  practically  vindicated.  In  Miinster,  this 
principle  had  to  be  maintained  against  a  socialist  move- 
ment in  which  the  clergy  were  the  leaders.  In  Liibeck,  it 
was  political  and  commercial  ambition  that  sought  to  identify 
with  its  own  aspirations  the  Protestant  reform.  Christian 
III.  was  a  Protestant;  his  triumph,  and  that  of  his  allies,  did 
not  weaken  the  Protestant  interest,  although  it  subverted  a 
new  political  fabric  which  had  been  set  up  in  connection  with 
it. 

The  reception  of  Protestantism  in  Norway  was  a  consequence 
of  the  ecclesiastical  revolution  in  Denmark.  Christian  III.  was 
at  first  opposed  in  that  country;  but,  in  1537,  the  Archbishop 
of  Drontheim  fled,  with  the  treasures  of  his  Cathedral,  to  the 
Netherlands,  and  Norway  was  reduced  to  the  rank  of  a  province 
of  Denmark.  In  Iceland,  Protestantism  gained  a  lodgment 
through  similar  agencies,  although  the  Bishop  of  Skalholt,  who 
had  been  a  student  at  Wittenberg,  was  an  active  and  influential 
teacher  of  the  new  doctrine. 


THE   REFORMATION   IN    NORWAY   AND   SWEDEN       153 

As  early  as  1519,  two  students  who  had  sat  at  the  feet  of 
Luther  in  Wittenberg,  Olaf  and  Lawrence  Petersen,  began  to 
preach  the  evangehcal  doctrine  in  Sweden.  The  Reformation 
prevailed,  however,  through  the  political  revolution  which  raised 
Gustavus  Vasa  to  the  throne.  Christian  II.  of  Denmark  was 
supported  in  his  endeavors  to  conquer  Sweden,  by  papal  edicts, 
and  by  the  cooperation  of  the  archbishop,  Gustavus  Trolle. 
The  Swedish  prelates  were  favorable  to  the  Danish  interest. 
Gustavus  Vasa,  a  nobleman  who  was  related  to  the  family  of 
Sture,  which  had  furnished  several  administrators  or  regents 
to  Sweden  prior  to  its  conquest  by  Christian  II.,  undertook  to 
liberate  his  country  from  the  Danish  yoke,  and  succeeded  in 
his  patriotic  enterprise.  He  was  favorable  to  the  Lutheran 
doctrine,  and  was  the  more  inclined  to  secure  for  it  the  ascendency, 
as  he  coveted  for  his  impoverished  treasury  the  vast  wealth 
which  had  been  accumulated  by  the  ecclesiastics.  He  appointed 
Lawrence  Andersen,  a  convert  to  Lutheranism,  his  chancellor; 
Olaf  Petersen  he  made  a  preacher  in  Stockholm,  and  Lawrence 
Petersen  a  theological  professor  at  Upsala.  Plots  of  the  bishops 
in  behalf  of  Christian  II.  naturally  stimulated  the  predilection 
of  Gustavus  for  the  Protestant  system.  A  public  disputation 
was  held  in  1524,  by  the  appointment  of  the  king,  at  Upsala,  in 
which  Olaf  Petersen  maintained  the  Lutheran  opinions.  The 
pecuniary  burdens  which  Gustavus  laid  upon  the  clergy  excited 
disaffection  among  them.  Finally,  at  the  Diet  of  Westeras,  in 
L527,  the  controversy  was  brought  to  a  crisis.  Gustavus  threat- 
ened to  abdicate  his  throne  if  his  demands  were  not  complied 
with.  The  result  was  that  liberty  was  granted  "  for  the  preachers 
to  proclaim  the  pure  Word  of  God,"  a  Protestant  definition  being 
coupled  with  this  phrase ;  and  the  property  of  the  Church,  with 
the  authority  to  regulate  ecclesiastical  affairs,  was  delivered  into 
the  hand  of  the  King.  The  churches  which  embraced  the  Prot- 
estant faith  preserved  their  revenues.  The  ecclesiastical  prop- 
erty fell  for  the  most  part  to  the  possession  of  the  nobles.  The 
common  people,  not  instructed  in  the  new  doctrine,  were  gen- 
erally attached  to  the  old  religious  system.  Gustavus  proposed 
to  introduce  changes  gradually,  and  to  provide  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  peasantry.  He  had  to  put  down  a  dangerous  insur- 
rection which  was  excited  in  part  by  priests  who  were  hostile 
to  the  religious  innovations.     By  degrees  the  Swedish  nation 


154  THE   REFORMATION 

acquired  a  firm  attachment  to  the  Protestant  doctrine  and  wor- 
ship. Gustavus  was  succeeded  by  Eric  XIV.,  whose  partiaUty 
to  Calvinism  made  no  impression  on  his  subjects.  Then  fol- 
lowed John  III.  (1568-1592),  who  married  a  Catholic  princess 
of  Poland,  and  who  made  a  prolonged,  and  what  at  times  seemed 
likely  to  prove  a  successful  effort,  with  the  aid  of  astute  Jesuits, 
to  introduce  a  moderate  type  of  Catholicism,  and  to  reconcile 
the  nation  to  its  adoption.  Popular  feeling  was  against  him; 
and  after  his  death  the  liturgy  which  he  had  established  and 
obstinately  maintained,  was  abolished  by  a  Council  at  Upsala 
in  1593,  and  the  Augsburg  Confession  accepted  as  the  creed  of 
the  national  Church.  Sigismund  III.  of  Poland,  on  account  of 
his  Catholicism,  was  prevented  from  reigning;  and  the  crown 
of  Sweden  was  given  to  Gustavus  Vasa's  youngest  son,  Charles 
IX.,  who  became  king  in  1604.  A  Calvinist  in  his  inclination, 
he  fell  in  with  the  general  preference  for  Lutheranism. 

The  destruction  of  Huss  by  the  Council  of  Constance  in  1415, 
followed  in  the  next  year  by  the  execution  of  Jerome  of  Prague, 
sent  a  thrill  of  indignation  through  the  greater  portion  of  the 
Bohemian  people.^  The  Bohemians  were  converted  from  heath- 
enism by  two  Greek  monks,  Methodius  and  Cyril ;  but  the  power 
of  the  Germans,  coupled  with  the  influence  of  the  Roman  See, 
secured  their  adhesion  to  the  Latin  Church.  In  the  Middle 
Ages,  however,  a  struggle  took  place  between  the  vernacular 
and  the  Latin  ritual.  An  application  for  leave  to  use  the  former 
was  denied  in  a  peremptory  manner  by  Gregory  VII.  Under- 
lying the  movement  of  which  Huss  was  the  principal  author, 
was  a  national  and  a  religious  feeling.  The  favorers  of  the 
Hussite  reform  were  of  the  Slavic  population;  its  opponents 
were  the  Germans.  The  contest  of  the  two  parties  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Prague  led  to  an  academical  revolution,  a  change  in 
the  constitution  of  the  University,  which  gave  the  preponderance 
of  power  in  the  conduct  of  its  affairs  to  the  natives.  Hence, 
the  German  students  left  in  a  body ;  and  out  of  this  great  exodus 
arose  the  University  of  Leipsic.  The  effect  of  this  academical 
quarrel  was  to  establish  the  ascendency  of  Huss  and  his  follow- 

'  For  works  relating  to  Bohemian  ecclesiastical  history,  see  supra,  p.  50 ;  also 
Lenfant,  Hist,  de  la  Guerre  d.  Hussites  et  du  ConcUe  de  Basle;  Pesheck,  Ge- 
schichte  d.   Gegenreformat.   in  Bohmen   (1850). 


THE   REFORMATION   IN   BOHEMIA  155 

ers.  While  the  Council  of  Constance  was  in  session,  Jacobellus, 
priest  of  the  Church  of  St.  Michael  at  Prague,  began  to  admin- 
ister the  cup  to  the  laity ;  and  the  practice  obtained  the  sanction 
of  Huss  himself.  The  cup  had  been  originally  withdrawn  from 
laymen,  not  with  the  design  to  confer  a  new  distinction  upon  the 
priestly  order,  but  simply  from  reverence  for  the  sacramental 
wine,  which  was  often  spilled  in  the  distribution  of  it  through 
an  assembly.^  The  custom,  once  established,  became  a  fixed 
rule  in  the  Church,  and  contributed  to  enhance  still  further 
the  dignity  of  the  sacerdotal  class.  Thomas  Aquinas  aided 
in  confirming  the  innovation  by  inculcating  the  doctrine  of 
concomitance,  the  doctrine  that  the  whole  Christ  is  in  each  of 
the  elements,  and  is  received,  therefore,  by  him  who  partakes 
of  the  bread  alone.  The  Utraquists  of  Bohemia  claimed  the 
cup.  They  went  beyond  the  position  of  Huss,  and  asserted 
that  the  reception  of  both  elements  is  essential  to  the  validity 
of  the  sacrament.  Henceforward  the  demand  for  the  chalice 
became  the  most  distinguishing  badge  of  the  Hussites,  the  sub- 
ject of  a  long  and  terrible  contest.  The  Council  at  Constance 
pronounced  the  Utraquist  opponents  of  the  Church  doctrine 
heretics. 

Fifty-four  Bohemian  and  Moravian  nobles  sent  from  Prague 
a  letter  to  the  Council  in  which  they  repelled  the  accusations  of 
heresy  which  had  been  made  against  their  countrymen,  and 
denounced  in  the  strongest  language  the  cruel  treatment  of 
Huss.  This  was  before  the  burning  of  Jerome,  an  event  that 
raised  the  storm  of  indignation  in  Bohemia  to  a  greater  height. 
The  Prague  University  declared  for  the  Utraquists,  and  their 
doctrine  speedily  gained  the  assent  of  the  major  part  of  the 
nation. 

The  Council,  and  Martin  V.,  resolved  upon  forcible  measures 
for  the  repression  of  the  Bohemian  errorists.  Bohemia  was  a 
constituent  part  of  the  German  Empire,  and  the  execution  of 
these  measures  fell  to  the  lot  of  Sigismund,  its  head,  who  was  an 
object  of  special  hatred  in  Bohemia  on  account  of  his  agency  in 
the  death  of  Huss.  There  soon  arose  in  Bohemia  a  powerful 
party  which  went  far  beyond  the  Utraquists  in  their  doctrinal 
innovations,  and  in  hostility  to  the  Roman  Church.  The  Ta- 
borites,  as  they  were  styled,  gathered  in  vast  multitudes  to  hear 

*  Gieseler,  Dogmengeschichte,  p.  542. 


156  THE   REFORMATION 

preaching,  and  to  cement  their  union  with  one  another/  Their 
creed,  which  took  on  new  phases  from  time  to  time,  embraced 
the  leading  points  of  what,  a  century  later,  was  included  in 
Protestantism;  although  their  tenets  were  not  deduced  from 
simple  and  fundamental  principles,  nor  boimd  together  in  a 
logically  coherent  system.  Unlike  the  ordinary  Utraquists, 
they  rejected  transubstantiation.  They  also  appealed  to  the 
Bible,  as  alone  authoritative,  and  refused  to  submit  to  the  de- 
cisions of  the  popes,  to  the  councils,  or  to  the  fathers.  For  a 
while,  chiliastic  and  apocalyptic  theories  prevailed  among  them. 
Discordant  political  tendencies  separated  the  Utraquists  from 
the  Taborites  —  the  latter  cherishing  democratic  ideas  respect- 
ing government  and  society.  The  opposition  which  they  expe- 
rienced converted  their  enthusiasm  into  fanaticism ;  and,  moved 
by  a  furious  iconoclastic  spirit,  they  assaulted  churches  and 
convents,  and  destroyed  the  treasures  which  had  been  gathered 
by  the  priesthood,  and  the  "implements  of  idolatry."  In  Ziska, 
the  most  noted  of  their  leaders,  they  had  a  general  of  fierce  and 
stubborn  bravery ;  and  under  his  guidance  the  force  of  the  Huss- 
ites became  well-nigh  irresistible. 

In  1421  the  moderate  Utraquists,  or  Calixtines,  embodied 
their  belief  in  four  articles,  the  Articles  of  Prague,  which  became 
a  memorable  document  in  the  history  of  the  Hussite  controver- 
sies.^ They  required  that  the  Word  of  God  should  be  preached 
freely  and  without  hindrance,  by  Christian  priests,  throughout 
the  kingdom  of  Bohemia ;  that  the  sacrament  should  be  admin- 
istered, in  both  forms,  to  all  Christians,  not  excluded  by  mortal 
sin  from  the  reception  of  it;  that  priests  and  monks  should  be 
divested  of  their  control  over  worldly  goods;  that  mortal  sins, 
especially  all  public  transgressions  of  God's  law,  whether  by 
priests  or  laymen,  should  be  subject  to  a  regular  and  strict  dis- 
cipline; and  that  an  end  should  be  put  to  all  slanderous  accu- 
sations against  the  Bohemian  people. 

On  the  relations  of  the  Utraquists  to  the  Taborites,  the  mod- 
erate to  the  radical  Hussites,  the  history  of  Bohemia  for  a  century 
intimately  depends.  The  two  parties  might  unite  in  a  crisis 
involving  danger  to  both ;  but  they  were  often  at  war  with  one 
another ;  and  their  common  enemy  knew  how  to  turn  to  the  best 
accoimt  their  mutual  differences.     The  most  conspicuous  feature 

•  Czerwenka,  i.  130.  *  Czerwenka,  i.  146;  Gieseler,  in.  v.  5,  §  151,  n.  19. 


THE   REFORMATION   IN   BOHEMIA  157 

that  belonged  to  them,  in  common,  was  the  demand  that  the 
cup  should  be  administered  to  the  laity. 

Three  crusades,  undertaken  by  the  authority,  and  at  the 
command  of  the  Church,  filled  Bohemia  with  the  horrors  of  war ; 
but  they  wholly  failed  to  subdue  the  heretics  who  were  united 
to  resist  them.  Vast  armies  were  beaten  and  driven  out  of  the 
country.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Bohemians  repaid  the  attacks 
made  upon  them,  by  devastating  incursions  into  the  neighbor- 
ing German  territory,  ruled  by  their  enemies. 

Convinced,  at  last,  of  the  futility  of  the  effort  to  conquer  the 
Hussites,  their  opponents  consented  to  treat  with  them.  By 
the  advice  of  Cardinal  Julian  Cesarini,  who  had  accompanied 
the  last  crusading  army  against  them,  and  shared  in  its  disas- 
trous overthrow,  the  Ecumenical  Council  of  Basel  decided  to 
enter  into  negotiations  with  them.  Having  first  carefully  ob- 
tained abundant  guaranties  for  their  personal  safety,  and  solemn 
pledges  that  they  should  have  a  free  and  full  hearing,  the  Utra- 
quist  delegates  —  representatives  of  both  the  leading  parties, 
the  Calixtines  and  Taborites  —  presented  themselves  at  Basel. 
At  their  head  was  Rokygana,  who  belonged  to  the  moderate 
party,  but  was  held  in  universal  esteem  for  his  talents,  learning, 
and  moral  excellence.  The  Hussite  theologians  used  their  free- 
dom to  the  full  extent.  They  harangued  the  Council  for  days 
in  defense  of  the  proscribed  doctrines,  in  vindication  of  the 
memory  of  Huss,  and  on  the  ecclesiastical  abuses  to  which  they 
had  endeavored  to  apply  a  remedy.  The  difference  between 
the  two  Bohemian  parties  was  brought  out  in  the  speeches 
of  their  respective  representatives,  and  was  skillfully  used  by 
Cesarini  and  the  Council,  in  order  to  widen  the  separation  be- 
tween them.  After  long  negotiations,  and  the  sending  of  an 
embassy  from  the  Council  to  Bohemia,  the  Hussites  obtained 
certain  concessions  which  were  set  forth  in  a  document  termed 
the  Compactata.  The  communion  might  be  given  in  both  kinds 
to  all  adults,  who  should  desire  it ;  but  it  must,  at  the  same  time, 
be  taught  that  the  whole  Christ  is  received  under  each  of  the 
elements.  The  infliction  of  penalties  on  persons  guilty  of  mortal 
sin,  on  which  the  Utraquists  insisted,  must  be  left  with  priests 
in  the  case  of  clerical  persons,  and  with  magistrates  in  the 
case  of  laymen.  The  Article  in  regard  to  the  free  preaching 
of  the  Word  was  qualified  by  confining  the  liberty  to  preach 


158  THE   REFORMATION 

to  persons  regularly  called  and  authorized  by  bishops.  As  to 
the  control  of  property,  this  was  to  be  allowed  to  secular  priests 
only,  and  by  them  to  be  exercised  according  to  the  prescribed 
rules.  The  Compactata  was  the  charter,  in  defense  of  which 
the  Utraquists  waged  many  a  hard  contest ;  since  it  was  a  con- 
stant effort  of  the  popes  to  annul  the  concessions  which  it  con- 
tained, and  to  reduce  even  the  most  moderate  of  the  Hussite 
sects  to  an  exact  conformity  to  the  Roman  ritual,  and  to  the 
mandates  of  the  Roman  See.  This  agreement  operated  also  to 
divide  the  Calixtines  and  Taborites  into  mutually  hostile  camps. 
An  armed  conflict  ensued,  in  which  the  Taborites  were  thor- 
oughly vanquished.  Thenceforward  the  power  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  Utraquists  who  were  desirous  of  approaching  as 
nearly  to  the  doctrines  and  rites  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  other 
countries  as  their  convictions  would  allow.  It  was  far  from 
being  true  that  peace  resulted  from  the  downfall  of  the  Taborites, 
and  the  conciliatory  proceedings  of  the  Calixtines.  The  history 
of  Bohemia,  through  the  fifteenth  century,  is  a  long  record  of 
bitter  and  bloody  conflicts,  having  for  their  end  the  restoration 
of  uniformity  in  religion.  About  the  middle  of  the  century,  a 
new  party,  the  Brethren  in  Unity,  who  inherited  many  of  the 
doctrinal  ideas  of  the  Taborites,  but  with  a  more  conservative 
tenet  relative  to  the  sacrament,  and  a  more  gentle  and  peaceful 
temper,  separated  entirely  from  the  Church.  They,  in  their 
turn,  were  the  objects  of  persecution  at  the  hands  of  the  more 
orthodox  Utraquists.  Ultimately  the  Brethren  were  joined  by 
some  nobles,  and  acquired  a  greater  degree  of  security.  They 
were  connected  with  certain  Waldensian  Christians,  and,  to 
some  extent,  influenced  by  them. 

Thus  Bohemia  for  several  generations  had  really  been  en- 
gaged in  a  struggle  to  build  up  a  national  church  in  opposition 
to  the  dominating  and  unifying  spirit  of  Rome.  When  Luther's 
doctrine  became  known,  it  was  favorably  received  by  the  Breth- 
ren, and  they  desired  to  connect  themselves  with  the  Saxon 
reform.  At  first  Luther  was  not  satisfied  with  their  opinions, 
especially  on  the  sacrament;  but,  after  conferences  with  them, 
he  concluded  that  their  faults  were  chiefly  in  expression  and 
were  owing  to  a  want  of  theological  culture.  After  the  example 
of  the  Lutherans  at  Augsburg,  the  Evangelical  Brethren,  in 
1535,    presented    to    King    Ferdinand    their    Confession.     The 


THE   REFORMATION   IN   BOHEMIA  159 

Calixtines  were  divided  on  the  question  of  pushing  forward 
the  Hussite  reform  in  the  direction  indicated  by  Luther. 
A  majority  of  the  estates  was  at  first  obtained  in  favor  of  declara- 
tions virtually  Lutheran.  But  the  more  conservative  Utra- 
quists,  who  planted  themselves  on  the  Compactata,  soon  rallied 
and  gained  the  upper  hand.  However,  the  Lutheran  doctrine 
continued  to  spread  and  to  multiply  its  adherents  among  the 
Calixtines  as  well  as  the  Brethren.  The  two  parties,  on  em- 
bracing Protestantism,  differed  from  one  another  chiefly  on 
points  of  discipline.  When  the  Smalcaldic  war  broke  out,  the 
Utraquists  refused  to  furnish  troops  to  Ferdinand,  in  aid  of  the 
attempt  of  Charles  V.  to  crush  the  Protestants,  but  joined 
the  Elector  of  Saxony,  The  Bohemians  shared  in  full  measure 
the  disasters  which  fell  upon  the  Protestant  party  after  their 
defeat  at  Miihlberg.  Ferdinand  inflicted  upon  them  severe 
penalties.  Toleration  was  now  denied  to  all  except  the  anti- 
Lutheran  Hussites;  and  this  drove  many  of  the  Brethren  into 
Poland  and  Prussia.  From  the  year  1552,  the  Jesuits  who 
then  came  into  the  country  endeavored  to  persecute  all 
whose  dissent  from  the  Romish  Church  went  beyond  the  stand- 
ard of  the  Compactata.  In  1575  the  Evangelical  Calixtines 
and  Brethren  united  in  presenting  a  confession  of  faith  to 
Maximilian  II.  As  the  power  of  the  Jesuits  increased,  there 
was  no  safety  for  the  adherents  of  the  Lutheran  or  the  Swiss 
reform.  In  1609,  to  such  as  received  the  confession  of  1575, 
there  was  granted  a  letter  patent  —  or  "letter  of  majesty" — 
which  placed  them  on  a  footing  of  legal  equality  with  the  Catho- 
lics. Persecution  by  the  Catholics  went  on  until,  in  1627,  it 
was  required  of  all  either  to  become  Catholic,  or  quit  the  country. 

When  the  German  Reformation  began,  Poland  was  rising  to 
that  position  which  rendered  it,  a  generation  later,  the  most 
powerful  kingdom  in  Eastern  Europe.  The  Slavonic  popula- 
tion of  Poland  had  never  manifested  any  peculiar  devotion  to 
the  Roman  See.  Conflicts  between  nobles  and  bishops,  in  which 
carnal  weapons  on  one  side  were  often  opposed  to  the  excom- 
munication and  the  interdict  on  the  other,  and  contests  be- 
tween princes  and  the  popes  on  questions  of  prerogative,  had 
been  abundant  in  Polish  history  for  several  centuries.*    At  the 

1  Dalton,  in  Hauck,  Realencyklopadie,  xv.  514  seq. ;  Leathes,  in  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  ii.  634  seq. 


160  THE   REFORMATION 

Council  of  Constance,  Poles  were  active  in  the  party  of  reform. 
Well-founded  disaffection  at  the  immoral  character  of  the  clergy 
had  widely  prevailed.  Hence  the  anti-sacerdotal  sects,  as  the 
Waldenses  and  the  Beghards,  won  many  followers,  and  were 
not  exterminated  by  the  Inquisition,  by  which,  about  the  middle 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  their  open  manifestation  was  sup- 
pressed. Far  more  influential  were  the  Hussites,  who  did 
much  to  prepare  the  ground  for  Protestantism,  Bohemian 
Brethren,  driven  from  their  own  land,  naturally  took  refuge  in 
Poland.  These  circumstances,  and  other  agencies,  such  as  the 
residence  of  Polish  students  at  Wittenberg  and  the  employ- 
ment of  Lutheran  teachers  and  preachers  in  the  families  of 
nobles,  opened  the  door  for  the  ingress  of  the  Protestant  doc- 
trine. It  early  gained  disciples,  especially  in  the  German 
cities  of  Polish  Prussia.  In  Dantzig,  the  principal  city  of  this 
province,  it  made  such  progress  that  in  1524  five  churches  were 
given  up  to  its  adherents.^  But  here  a  turbulent  party  arose 
who,  not  satisfied  with  toleration,  insisted  upon  driving  out  the 
Catholic  worship,  and  succeeded  by  violent  measures  in  displac- 
ing the  existing  magistrates,  and  in  supplying  their  places 
with  officers  from  their  own  number.  The  interference  of  the 
King,  Sigismund  I.,  was  invoked,  who  restored  the  old  order 
of  things.  The  progress  of  the  Lutheran  cause,  however,  was 
not  stopped,  and  Dantzig  in  the  next  reign  became  predomi- 
nantly Protestant.  The  council  and  the  burghers  of  Elbing 
accepted  the  Reformation  m  1523.  Thorn  also  became  Prot- 
estant. The  advance  of  the  Reformation  in  the  neighboring 
communities  made  it  impossible  to  exclude  it  from  Poland, 
where  numerous  burghers  and  powerful  nobles  regarded  it 
with  favor.  By  the  treaty  of  Thorn  in  1466,  the  old  Teutonic 
Order  or  crusading  knights,  which  had  long  governed  Prussia, 
surrendered  West  Prussia  and  Ermeland  to  Poland  and  retained 
East  Prussia  as  a  fief  of  the  Polish  crown.  At  the  request  of 
Albert  of  Brandenburg,  the  Grand  Master,  two  preachers  were 
sent  by  Luther  to  Konigsberg,  in  1523.  The  Reformation 
swiftly  spread;  and  when  Albert,  after  having  been  defeated 
by  Poland,  secularized  his  duchy,  in  1525,  the  prevalence  of  the 

*  Krasinski,  Religious  History  of  the  Slavonic  Nations,  p.  126;  History  of  the 
Reformation  in  Poland,  i.  112  seq. ;  Die  Schicksale  d.  Polnischen  Dissidenten  (Ham- 
burg,  1768),  i.  423. 


THE   REFORMATION    IN    POLAND  161 

Protestant  doctrine  was  secured.  In  1544  he  founded  the 
University  of  Konigsberg  for  the  education  of  preachers  and 
the  extension  of  the  new  faith.  In  Livonia,  which,  after  1521, 
was  independent  of  the  Teutonic  Order,  the  Reformation  Hke- 
wise  found  a  wilhng  acceptance.  As  early  as  1524  Luther  ad- 
dressed a  printed  letter  to  the  professors  of  the  evangelical 
doctrine  in  Riga,  Revel,  and  Dorpat.  Cities  in  the  various 
parts  of  Poland  and  families  of  distinction  embraced  the  new 
faith.  In  1548  a  multitude  of  Bohemian  Brethren,  exiles  from 
their  country,  came  in  to  strengthen  the  Protestant  interest. 
In  this  year  Sigismund  I.  died,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son, 
Sigismund  II.,  or  Sigismund  Augustus,  who  was  friendly  to  the 
evangelical  doctrine.  Calvin  dedicated  to  him  his  Commentary 
on  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  subsequently  corresponded 
with  him.  In  the  Diet  of  1552,  strong  indignation  was  mani- 
fested against  the  clergy  on  account  of  the  proceedings  of  an 
ecclesiastical  tribunal  against  Stadnicki,  an  eminent  nobleman. 
The  clergy  were  forbidden  to  inflict  any  temporal  punishment 
on  those  whom  they  might  pronounce  heterodox.^  At  a  Diet 
at  Piotrkow  in  1555,  a  national  council  for  the  settlement  of 
religious  differences  was  demanded,  and  was  prevented  from 
assembling  only  by  the  strenuous  exertions  of  the  Pope.  Re- 
ligious freedom  was  granted  by  the  king  to  the  cities  of  Dantzig, 
Thorn,  and  Elbing:  and  also  to  Livonia  in  the  treaty  of  1561, 
by  which  it  was  annexed  to  Poland.  Dissension  among  Prot- 
estants themselves  was  the  chief  hindrance  in  the  way  of  the 
complete  diffusion  of  the  Protestant  faith,  which  at  this  time 
had  penetrated  all  ranks  of  society.  The  Calvinists  were  nu- 
merous; they  organized  themselves  according  to  the  Presby- 
terian form,  and  a  union  between  them  and  the  Brethren,  in 
respect  to  doctrine,  was  cemented  at  a  synod  in  1555.  Opposed 
to  these  were  the  Lutherans,  who  were  mostly  Germans,  and  who 
took  little  pains  to  propagate  their  system  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  any  other  language  than  their  own.  The  Uni- 
tarians formed  a  third  party,  which  found  a  leader  in  the  erudite 
Italian,  Faustus  Socinus,  and  became  strong,  in  particular 
among  the  higher  classes.  The  intestine  divisions  among  the 
Protestants  afforded   in  various  ways   a   great  advantage   to 

'  Krasinski,  Relig.  Hist,  of  the  Slavonic  Nations,  pp.  132,  133 ;  Regenvolscius, 
Hist.  Eccles.  Slavonicarum  (1654),  p.  209. 


162  THE   REFORMATION 

their  antagonists.  An  able,  accomplished,  and  indefatigable 
defender  of  Catholicism  was  found  in  Hosius,  Bishop  of  Culm, 
and,  after  1551,  of  Ermeland.  On  the  Protestant  side,  con- 
spicuous for  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  union,  as  well  as  for  his 
general  character  and  diversified  labors,  was  John  a  Lasco. 
Born  of  a  wealthy  and  aristocratic  family  in  Poland,  he  was 
destined  for  the  priesthood,  and  after  completing  his  studies  in 
his  native  country,  he  resorted  to  foreign  universities,  especially 
Louvain  and  Basel.  At  Basel  he  was  intimate  with  Erasmus, 
and  for  a  time  an  inmate  of  his  house.  For  eleven  years,  from 
the  year  1526,  he  labored  to  establish  in  Poland  a  reformation 
after  the  Erasmian  type.  Finding  his  exertions  fruitless,  he 
left  his  country,  took  a  more  decided  position  on  the  Protestant 
side,  and  for  a  number  of  years  superintended  the  organization 
of  the  Protestant  Church  in  East  Friesland.  After  the  Smal- 
caldic  war  and  the  passage  of  the  Interim,  he  went  to  England, 
where  he  was  brought  into  a  close  relation  with  Cranmer,  and 
took  charge  of  the  church  of  foreign  residents,  first  in  London 
and  then,  from  1553  to  1556,  in  Frankfort.  After  the  Polish 
Diet  in  1566  had  granted  a  free  exercise  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion in  the  houses  of  individual  noblemen,  Lasco  was  called 
back  to  his  country  by  King  Sigismund.  Here  he  labored  to 
promote  unity  between  the  Calvinists  and  Lutherans,  and  for 
the  spread  of  the  Protestant  faith.  He  died  in  1560.  Ten 
years  after,  the  Lutherans,  influenced  by  counsel  from  Witten- 
berg, where  the  school  of  Melancthon  then  had  sway,  joined 
with  the  Swiss  and  the  Brethren,  at  the  Synod  of  Sendomir,  in 
the  adoption  of  a  common  creed.  This  Confession  is  consonant 
with  the  Calvinistic  view  of  the  sacrament,  but  it  carefully 
avoids  language  that  might  give  offense  to  Lutherans;  and  it 
includes  an  explicit  sanction  of  the  Saxon  Confession,  which 
had  been  prepared  to  be  sent  to  the  Council  of  Trent.^  After 
the  death  of  Sigismund  in  1572,  the  crown  became  elective, 
and  the  sovereigns  were  obliged  to  assent  to  the  "  Pax  Dissiden- 
tium,"  which  guaranteed  equality  of  rights  to  all  churches  in 
the  kingdom.  Under  the  term  "Dissidents"  were  included 
the  Catholics  as  well  as  the  other  religious  bodies.  The  Duke 
of  Anjou,  afterwards  Henry  III.  of  France,  on  being  elected 

*  The  Consensus  Polonice  or  Sendomir ensis  is  in  Niemeyer,  Collectio  Confes- 
sionum,  p.  553.     Krasinski,  Hist,  of  the  Re},  in  Poland,  i.  c.  ix. 


THE   REFORMATION   IN    POLAND   AND   HUNGARY      163 

King  of  Poland,  in  1573,  found  it  impossible  to  escape  from 
taking  solemn  oaths  to  protect  the  Protestant  religion  against 
persecution  and  aggression.  But  the  royal  power  was  so  much 
weakened  that,  although  the  monarchs  might  effect  much  by 
the  bestowal  of  honors  and  offices,  the  fate  of  Protestantism 
depended  mainly  on  the  disposition  of  the  nobles.  To  detach 
these  from  the  Protestant  side  and  to  gain  them  over  to  the 
Catholic  Church,  through  institutions  of  education  and  by  other 
influences,  formed  one  prime  object  of  the  Jesuits;  to  whom, 
in  connection  with  the  fatal  divisions  and  quarrels  of  Protes- 
tants, the  Catholic  reaction  was  to  be  indebted  for  its  great 
success  in  Poland. 

Numerous  Germans  were  settled  in  Hungary,  by  whom  the 
doctrines  and  the  writings  of  Luther  were  brought  into  that 
country.  Bohemian  Brethren,  and  Waldenses  yet  more,  con- 
tributed to  the  favorable  reception  of  Protestantism  by  the 
people  among  whom  they  dwelt.  Hungarian  students  not 
only  resorted  to  the  universities  of  Poland,  but  went  to  Witten- 
berg also,  and  returned  to  disseminate  the  principles  which  they 
had  learned  from  Luther  and  Melancthon.  It  was  in  vain 
that  the  new  faith  was  forbidden.  A  savage  law  against  Lu- 
therans, which  was  passed  at  the  Diet  of  Of  en,  in  1523,  did  not 
stop  the  progress  of  the  Protestant  movement.  It  emanated 
from  the  people,  and  silently  spread  with  great  rapidity.  In 
1523  the  Protestants  were  the  prevailing  party  in  Hermann- 
stadt,  and  two  years  after,  the  five  royal  free  cities  in  Upper 
Hungary  adopted  the  Reformation.^  The  new  views  were 
embraced  also  by  powerful  nobles.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  princes  of  the  Slavonic  House  of  Jagellon 
reigned  in  the  three  kingdoms  of  Poland,  Bohemia,  and  Hun- 
gary. But  they  found  it  for  their  interest  to  connect  themselves, 
by  matrimonial  alliances,  with  the  ruling  family  in  Austria.^ 
Louis  II.,  in  1526,  attempted  to  stem  the  great  invasion  of  the 
Turks,  under  Soliman,  with  an  insufficient  force,  and  perished 
after  his  great  defeat  at  Mohacs.  Ferdinand  of  Austria  claimed 
the  thrones  of  Bohemia  and  Hungary,  which  the  death  of  Louis 
left  vacant.    By  prudent  management,  he  succeeded  in  pro- 

1  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  2,  §  16. 

*  Ranke,  Deutsch.  Geschichte,  ii.  286  seq. 


164  THE   REFORMATION 

curing  his  election  as  King  of  Bohemia,  against  his  ambitious 
competitor,  the  Duke  of  Bavaria.  In  Hungary  he  entered 
into  war  with  a  rival  aspirant  to  the  crown,  one  of  the  great 
magnates,  John  of  Zapolya,  voivode  of  Transylvania.  Both 
Ferdinand  and  Zapolya  found  it  expedient  to  denounce  the 
Protestants,  in  order  to  secure  the  support  of  the  bishops. 
But  neither  found  it  possible,  in  the  circumstances  in  which 
they  were  placed,  to  engage  in  persecution.  During  this  do- 
mestic conflict,  the  Reformation  advanced  in  the  portions  of 
Himgary  not  occupied  by  the  Turks.  By  the  peace  of  1538 
Ferdinand  gained  the  throne.  John  was  to  retain  Transyl- 
vania and  a  part  of  Upper  Hungary  during  his  life.  After 
his  death,  his  Queen,  Isabella,  clung  to  his  possessions,  and 
this  was  the  occasion  of  a  continuance  of  war.  The  whole 
Saxon  population  of  Transylvania  adopted  the  Augsburg 
Confession ;  the  Synod  of  Erdod,  in  Hungary,  issued  a  like  dec- 
laration. Even  the  widow  of  Louis  favored  the  Lutheran 
doctrine.  Queen  Isabella,  in  1557,  granted  to  the  adherents  of 
the  Augsburg  Confession  equal  political  rights  with  the  Catho- 
lics. Hungary,  like  Poland,  was  a  severe  sufferer  through  the 
strife  of  Protestants  among  themselves.  The  Swiss  doctrine 
of  the  Eucharist  found  favor,  especially  among  the  native 
Hungarians.  It  derived  increased  popularity  after  the  adop- 
tion of  it  by  Matthew  Devay,  who  was  the  most  eminent  of  the 
Protestant  leaders.^  After  studying  at  Cracow,  he  resided  for 
a  time  at  Wittenberg,  in  the  family  of  Luther;  and,  after  his 
return  to  his  country,  became  a  very  successful  preacher  of 
the  Lutheran  doctrines.  He  was  more  than  once  imprisoned, 
but  did  not  cease,  by  preaching  and  by  his  publications,  to  pro- 
mote the  Protestant  cause.  In  1533  he  published  a  Magyar 
translation  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  and  three  years  after- 
wards a  version  of  the  Gospels.  Devay  had  been  intimate 
with  Melancthon,  who  preached  in  Latin  to  him  and  to  other 
students  who  did  not  understand  German;  and  he  was  well 
acquainted  with  Grynseus  and  other  Swiss  Reformers.  About 
the  year  1540  Devay  began  to  promulgate  the  Calvinistic  view 
of  the  sacrament,  to  the  amazement  and  disgust  of  Luther, 
who  expressed  his  surprise  in  letters  to  Hungarians.     In  1557, 

*  Hauck,  Realencycl.,  iv.  595  seq.     Lampe,   Hist.  Ecd.  Ref.   in  Hungaria  et 
Transylvania  (1728),  p.  72. 


THE   REFORMATION   IN    HUNGARY  165 

or  1558,  a  Calvinistic  creed  was  adopted  by  a  Synod  at  Czenger.' 
The  Calvinistic  doctrine  ultimately  prevailed  and  established 
itself  among  the  Magyar  Protestants.  In  Transylvania,  the 
Unitarians  were  numerous,  and  they  were  granted  toleration  in 
1571;  so  that  four  legalized  forms  of  religion  existed  there. 
Notwithstanding  the  unhappy  contest  of  Lutherans  and  Cal- 
vinists.  Protestantism  continued  to  gain  ground  in  Hungary, 
through  the  reigns  of  Ferdinand  I.  and  Maximilian  II.,  and  for 
a  long  time  under  Rudolph  II.  Only  three  magnates  remained 
in  the  old  Church.  But  Hungary  was  to  furnish  a  field  on  which 
the  Catholic  Reaction,  under  the  management  of  the  Jesuits, 
would  exert  its  power  with  marked  success.* 

*  Confessio  Czengerina,  in  Niemeyer,  p.  542.  See,  also,  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Chris- 
tendom, i.  589  seq.  In  1556  all  of  the  Hungarian  Calvinistic  churches  submitted 
to  the  Confessio  Helvetica. 

^  At  an  early  date,  there  were  numerous  followers  of  Luther  in  the  Nether- 
lands ;  but  it  will  be  more  convenient  to  narrate  the  progress  of  Protestantism 
in  other  countries,  after  describing  the  rise  of  Calvinism. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JOHN    CALVIN    AND    THE    GENEVAN   REFORMATION 

The  Reformation  was  firmly  established  in  Germany  before 
it  had  taken  root  or  had  found  an  acknowledged  leader  among 
the  Romanic  nations.  Such  a  leader  at  length  appeared  in  the 
person  of  John  Calvin,  whose  influence  was  destined  to  extend 
much  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Latin  nations  and  whose  name 
was  to  go  down  to  posterity  in  frequent  association  with  that 
of  Luther/  Calvin  was  born  at  Noyon,  in  Picardy,  on  the  10th 
of  July,  1509.  He  was  only  eight  years  old  when  Luther  posted 
his  theses.  He  belongs  to  the  second  generation  of  reformers, 
and  this  circumstance  is  important  as  affecting  both  his  own 
personal  history  and  the  character  of  his  work.  When  he 
arrived  at  manhood,  the  open  war  upon  the  old  Church  had 
already  been  waged  for  a  score  of  years.  The  family  of  Calvin 
had  been  of  humble  rank,  but  it  was  advanced  by  his  father, 
Gerard  Cauvin,  who  held  various  offices,  including  that  of  notary 
in  the  ecclesiastical  court  at  Noyon,  and  secretary  to  the  bish- 
opric. The  physical  constitution  of  Calvin  was  not  strong,  but 
his  uncommon  intellectual  power  was  early  manifest.  From 
his  mother  he  received  a  strict  religious  training.  Attracting 
the  regard  of  the  noble  family  of  Mommor,  residing  at  Noyon, 
he  was  taken  under  their  patronage  and  instructed  with  their 
children.     He  had  no  experience  of  the  rough    conflict  with 

*  The  Life  of  Calvin,  by  Theodore  Beza,  is  the  work  of  a  contemporary  and 
friend  :  Das  Leben  Johann  Calvins,  von  Paul  Henry  (Hamburg,  1835-44,  3  vols.), 
a  thorough,  but  diffusely  written  biography :  Johann  Calvin,  seine  Kirche  u.  sein 
Staat  in  Genf,  von  F.  W.  Kampsehulte,  2  vols.  (Leipsic,  1869,  1899).  Kamp- 
schulte  is  a  Roman  Catholic,  thorough  in  his  researches  and  dispassionate,  but 
not  friendly  to  CaUnn.  Henry  and  Kampsehulte  may  be  profitably  read  to- 
gether. Johannes  Calvin,  Leben  u.  ausgewdhlte  Schriften,  von  Dr.  L.  E.  Stahelin 
(Elberfeld,  1863),  2  vols.  This  is  the  best  of  the  German  lives  of  the  reformer.  A 
valuable,  impartial  Life  of  Calvin  is  that  of  Dyer  (London,  1850).  Very  attractive 
in  its  exterior  and  valuable  in  its  details  is  the  F'rench  work  of  E.  Doumergue, 
Jean  Calvin,  les  hommes,  et  les  chases  de  son  temps,  5  vols.,  with  numerous  illustra- 
tions. Herminjard,  Correspondence  des  r^forrnateurs  dans  les  pays  de  langue  fran- 
Qaise,  1866  — vols.,  is  a  rich  collection  of  historical  sources.  The  best  collection 
of  Calvin's  Works  is  in  the  Corpus  Reformatorum,  Braunschweig,  1863-1900. 

166 


THE   EDUCATION   OF   CALVIN  167 

penury  which  many  of  the  German  and  Swiss  reformers  were 
obhged  in  their  youth  to  undergo.  When  only  twelve  years 
old,  he  was  made  the  recipient  of  the  income  of  a  chaplaincy, 
which  enabled  him  to  prosecute  his  studies  in  Paris.  To  this 
stipend,  a  few  years  afterwards,  the  income  of  another  benefice 
was  added.  At  the  outset  his  father  intended  that  he  should 
be  a  priest.  When  transferred  to  Paris,  he  was  first  in  the 
College  de  la  Marche,  where  he  was  taught  Latin  by  a  cultivated 
Humanist,  Maturin  Cordier,  better  known  under  the  name  of 
Corderius,  for  whom  he  cherished  a  lifelong  attachment,  and 
who  became  a  devoted  friend,  and  cooperated  with  him  in  foster- 
ing his  plans  for  Christian  Education  in  Switzerland  and  France, 
and  whom  he  succeeded  in  placing  in  charge  of  his  school  at 
Geneva.  He  also  studied  in  the  College  Montaigu,  where  he 
was  trained  in  scholastic  logic  under  a  learned  Spaniard,  who 
afterwards,  in  the  same  school,  guided  the  studies  of  Ignatius 
Loyola.^  There  Calvin  surpassed  his  companions  in  assiduity 
and  aptitude  to  learn.  He  was  noted  for  his  quick  perception 
and  skill  in  dialectics,  but  he  spent  much  of  the  time  by  him- 
self, and  from  his  serious,  and,  perhaps,  severe  turn  of  mind, 
was  nicknamed  "The  Accusative  Case."  ^  Beza  says  that  this 
designation  is  reported  to  have  been  given  Calvin  by  his  school- 
mates, on  account  of  his  being  as  a  scholar  exceedingly  [in 
mirum  modum]  religious  and  a  strict  censor  of  all  their  faults. 
He  had  reached  his  eighteenth  year,  had  received  the  tonsure, 
and  even  preached  occasionally,  but  had  not  taken  orders,  when 
his  father,  from  worldly  motives,  changed  his  plan  and  con- 
cluded to  qualify  his  son  for  the  profession  of  a  jurist.^  He 
accordingly  prosecuted  his  legal  studies  under  celebrated  teach- 
ers at  Orleans  and  Bourges,  then  the  most  famous  law  schools 
in  France.  As  a  student  of  law  he  attained  the  highest  pro- 
ficiency and  distinction.  He  undermined  his  health  by  study- 
ing late  into  the  night,  in  order  to  arrange  and  digest  the 
contents  of  the  lectures  which  he  had  heard  during  the  day.* 
Early  in  the  morning  he  would  awake  to  repeat  to  himself  what 

*  Kampschulte,  i.  223.  ^  Guizot,  St.  Louis  and  Calvin,  p.  155. 

'  Calvin  says  of  his  father;  "Quum  videret  legum  scientiam  passim  augere 
suos  cultores  opibus,  spes  ilia  repente  eum  impulit  ad  mutandum  consilium." 
—  Preface  to  the  Psalms.  The  father's  motive  appears  to  have  been  the  prospect 
of  wealth  in  the  legal  professions. 

*  Beza,  Vita  Johannis  Calvini,  ii.  "Somni  pcene  nullius,"  says  Beza  in  his 
closing  remarks  upon  Calvin,  xxxi. 


168  THE   REFORMATION 

he  had  thus  reduced  to  order.  He  never  required  but  a  few 
hours  for  sleep,  and,  as  was  also  the  case  with  Melancthon, 
his  intense  mental  activity  frequently  kept  him  awake  through 
the  night.  Such  was  his  progress,  and  so  highly  was  he  esteemed 
by  his  instructors  that  often  when  they  were  temporarily  ab- 
sent he  took  their  place.  At  the  same  time  he  indulged  his 
taste  for  literature,  and  learned  Greek  from  the  German  pro- 
fessor of  that  language,  Melchior  Wolmar,  with  whom  he  stood 
in  a  friendly  relation.  The  amount  of  Wolmar 's  religious 
influence  on  him  was  less  than  it  is  sometimes  assumed  to  have 
been.^  Before  this  time,  at  the  urgent  request  of  a  Protestant 
relative,  Peter  Olivetan,  afterwards  the  first  Protestant  trans- 
lator of  the  Bible  into  French,  he  had  directed  his  attention 
to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures.  In  1531,  having  completed  his 
law  studies  at  Bourges,  he  stayed  for  several  weeks  at  his 
father's  house.  In  the  summer  he  returned  to  Paris,  where  he 
kept  up  his  Humanistic  studies.  And  we  have  little  knowl- 
edge of  him  up  to  1532,  the  date  of  his  first  publication,  an 
annotated  edition  of  Seneca's  treatise  on  "Clemency,"  dated  in 
April.  It  has  been  erroneously  supposed  that  he  hoped  by 
this  work  to  move  Francis  I.  to  adopt  a  milder  policy  towards 
the  persecuted  Protestants.  No  such  design  appears  in  the 
book.^  His  interest  in  literary  studies  was  not  chilled,  and  he 
aimed  to  bring  himself  into  notice  as  a  scholar  and  author. 
His  notions  of  reform  certainly  did  not  exclude  sympathy  with 
the  writings  of  Reuchlin  and  Erasmus.  He  writes  to  his 
friends  to  aid  in  circulating  his  book  and  in  calling  attention  to 
it,  a  part  of  his  motive  being,  however,  to  reimburse  himself 
for  the  cost  of  the  publication.  His  notes  on  Seneca  show  his 
wide  acquaintance  with  the  classics,  his  ethical  discernment, 
and  his  interest  in  theological  questions.  But  there  is  no  pro- 
fession on  the  side  of  the  Reformation. 

'  See  Hauck,  Realencycl.  d.  Theol.  u.  Kirche,  iii.  p.  656. 

*  That  the  commentary  on  Seneca  was  designed  to  affect  the  French  king  in 
this  way,  and  was  composed,  therefore,  after  Calvin's  conversion,  is  assumed  by 
many,  among  whom  are  Henry,  i.  50,  and  Herzog  in  the  art.  "Calvin"  in  the 
Realencycl.  d.  Theol.,  edited  by  himself;  also  by  Guizot,  St.  Louis  and  Calvin, 
p.  162.  For  evidence  to  the  contrary,  see  Stahelin,  i.  14.  The  dedication  (to 
the  Abbot  of  St.  Eloy)  is  dated  April  4,  1532.  Stahelin  gives  1533  as  the  date 
of  his  conversion.  Calvin  says  {Preface  to  the  Psalms)  that  in  less  than  a  year 
after  his  conversion  the  Protestants  were  looking  to  him  for  instruction.  The  sup>- 
position  that  this  religious  change  occurred  shortly  after  the  publication  of  Seneca's 
treatise  best  accords  with  Beza's  statement.  Vita  Calvini,  ii.     See  infra,  p.  170. 


CALVIN'S  CONVERSION  169 

Respecting  the  conversion  of  Calvin,  there  are  questions 
relative  to  its  mode  or  powers,  and  the  chronology,  which  are 
still  controverted.  This  is  true  especially  as  to  what  he  him- 
self terms  his  "sudden"  conversion  and  the  open  espousal  of 
Protestantism.  The  documents  of  most  interest  on  these 
topics  are  his  Letter  to  Sadolet  and  his  Preface  to  the  Psalms. 
In  the  Preface  to  his  Commentary  on  the  Psalms,  he  writes  that 
when  he  was  too  devoted  to  the  superstitions  of  Popery  to  be 
easily  extracted,  "  God,  by  a  sudden  conversion  brought  his  mind 
to  a  teachable  frame."  He  writes:  ''After  my  heart  had  long 
been  prepared  for  the  most  earnest  self-examination,  on  a  sudden 
the  full  knowledge  of  the  truth,  like  a  bright  light,  disclosed  to 
me  the  abyss  of  errors  in  which  I  was  weltering,  the  sin  and 
shame  with  which  I  was  defiled.  A  horror  seized  on  my  soul 
when  I  became  conscious  of  my  wretchedness  and  of  the  more 
terrible  misery  that  was  before  me.  And  what  was  left,  0 
Lord,  for  me,  miserable  and  abject,  but,  with  tears  and  cries  of 
supplication,  to  abjure  the  old  life  which  Thou  condemned,  and 
to  flee  into  Thy  path?"  He  describes  himself  as  having  striven 
in  vain  to  attain  inward  peace  by  the  methods  set  forth  in  the 
teaching  of  the  Church.  But  the  more  he  had  directed  his  eye 
inward  or  upward  to  God,  the  more  did  his  conscience  torment 
him.  "Only  one  haven  of  salvation  is  there  for  our  souls,"  he 
says,  "  and  that  is  the  compassion  of  God,  which  is  offered  to  us 
in  Christ:"  "We  are  saved  by  grace  not  by  our  merits,  not  by 
our  works.  Since  we  embrace  Christ  by  faith,  and,  as  it  were, 
enter  into  his  fellowship,  we  call  this,  in  the  language  of 
Scripture,  'justification  by  faith,'"  We  know  less  of  Calvin's 
inward  experience  than  we  know  of  Luther's,  and  even  its  es- 
sential identity  with  that  of  Luther  is  by  some  doubted.  Calvin 
had  hesitated  about  becoming  a  Protestant,  out  of  reverence 
for  the  Church.  But  he  so  modified  his  conception  of  the  Church 
as  to  perceive  that  the  change  did  not  involve  a  renunciation 
of  it.^  Membership  in  the  true  Church  was  consistent  with 
renouncing  the  rule  of  the  Roman  Catholic  prelacy;  for  the 
Church,  in  its  essence  invisible,  exists  in  a  true  form  wherever 
the  Gospel  is  faithfully  preached  and  the  sacraments  admin- 
istered conformably  to  the  directions  of  Christ.  Calvin  was 
naturally  reserved  and  even  bashful;   he  aspired  after  nothing 

*  Epist.  ad  Sadolet.     Opera  (ed.  Reuss  al.),  vol.  v.  385  seq. 


170  THE   REFORMATION 

higher,  either  after  or  before  his  conversion,  than  the  oppor- 
tunity to  pursue  his  studies  in  retirement.  He  had  an  instinctive 
repugnance  to  pubhcity  and  conflict.  His  former  studies,  to 
be  sure,  had  now  a  secondary  place;  his  whole  soul  was  ab- 
sorbed in  the  examination  of  the  Bible  and  in  the  investigation 
of  religious  truth.^  But  still  he  craved  seclusion  and  quiet. 
He  found,  however,  that,  notwithstanding  his  youth,  in  the 
company  of  the  persecuted  Protestants  at  Paris  he  was  quickly 
regarded  as  a  leader,  and  his  counsel  was  sought  by  all  who  had 
need  of  religious  instruction. 

Notice  may  here  be  given  to  the  chronological  problem  per- 
taining to  his  conversion.  The  tradition  was  early  accepted 
and  has  been  long  adopted  that  Calvin  wrote  for  his  friend, 
Nicholas  Cop,  who  had  been  made  Rector  of  the  University 
of  Paris,  the  opening  Address,  in  which  there  were  introduced 
the  ideas  of  the  Reformation,  and  that  the  doctrines  thus  de- 
clared awakened  a  hostile  excitement,  which  not  only  obliged 
Cop  to  fly  to  escape  arrest,  which  is  admitted,  but  Calvin  also. 
The  learned  critic,  R.  Stahelin,  of  late  has  brought  together  data 
that  convince  him  that  the  supposition  of  Calvin's  authorship  of 
Cop's  Address  is  a  mistake.  With  this  opinion  is  connected 
further  the  persuasion  that  at  this  time  of  the  Paris  agitation 
and  Cop's  Address,  Calvin  did  not,  and  had  not  before,  avowed 
himself  a  convert  to  the  Protestant  Creed  and  resumed  his  ad- 
hesion to  the  Church  and  Creed  of  Rome.  Stahelin  seeks  to 
show  that  this  living  experience  and  profession  of  the  new  faith 
were  at  a  later  date,  when  at  Noyon  he  resigned  his  benefices, 
and  was  there  arrested  and  for  a  good  while  confined  in  prison 
by  the  adherents  of  the  old  Church.  The  position  of  Stahelin, 
as  to  the  dates,  is  withstood  by  A.  Lang,  Domprediger  in 
Halle,^  who  brings  together  important  evidence  of  the  author- 
ship by  Calvin  of  Cop's  Address,  of  Calvin's  co-working  in  Paris 
with  the  Protestant  converts,  and  of  his  spiritual  consecration 
to  God  between  August  23,  1533,  and  the  end  of  October,  of 
that  year,  his  giving  of  himself  thenceforward  to  the  service  of 
the  Gospel.  His  resignation  and  imprisonment  at  Noyon  was 
early  in  May,  1534. 

*  Bonnet,   Letters  of  Calvin,   i.   7,   8. 

'  Die  Bekehrung  Johannes  Calvins,  von  A.  Lang,  Leipsic,  1897.  With  the 
proofs  offered  by  Lang  is  an  interesting  statement  of  the  principal  contents,  ch. 
iv.  p.  43  seq. 


CALVIN'S   CONVERSION  171 

Surprise  has  been  felt  at  the  prominence  often  given  by 
Calvin  to  the  impression  made  on  him,  through  the  Scriptures, 
of  the  divine  authority  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Law  of  God,  in 
comparison  with  the  less  he  has  to  say  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Saviour's  work  in  behalf  of  the  sinner,  and  of  the  one  indispen- 
sable need  of  dependence  on  Christ  as  the  ground  of  forgiveness. 
Lang  finds  in  Cop's  Address  much  on  these  last  vital  points 
of  the  Gospel,  which  corresponds,  in  part  sentence  by  sentence, 
to  portions  of  a  sermon  of  Luther,  preached  in  1522  on  the 
same  festal  day  as  the  day  of  that  Address,  and  which,  taken  up 
in  the  Church  Postils,  might  have  been  made  known  in  France 
through  one  of  the  Latin  translations/  The  connection  of  these 
extracts  with  what  is  said  through  Cop  of  the  grace  of  God  to 
the  believer,  with  no  merit  on  his  part,  who  nevertheless  receives 
with  indubitable  certainty  the  free  pardon  of  sin  and  peace, 
Lang  recognizes  as  an  expression  by  Calvin  of  his  own  personal 
experience,  and  as  one  of  the  evidences  of  its  identity  with  the 
mind  of  Luther,  as  regards  the  place  of  law  and  of  the  work  of 
Christ  in  the  practical  reception  of  the  Gospel.  The  copious 
reproduction  in  Cop  of  these  excerpts  is  analogous  to  a  like  cita- 
tion from  pages  of  Erasmus,  which  Lang  likewise  ascribes  to 
the  pen  of  Calvin. 

The  extended  researches  of  M.  Doumergue  embrace  a  careful 
discussion  of  the  conversion  of  Calvin.^  Doumergue  gives 
high  praise  to  Lang's  very  recent  and  remarkable  "  Study  of  the 
Conversion  of  Calvin,"  but  does  not  concur  with  him  in  full. 
With  Lang,  he  defends  the  thesis  that  Calvin's  authorship  is  at 
the  basis  of  Cop's  Address.  He  does  not  concede  that  Calvin 
used  the  term  "conversion"  in  exactly  the  sense  in  which  we 
use  it  now.  When  the  religious  change  in  himself  is  referred 
to,  the  successive  stages  in  this  change,  if  not  mentioned,  are 
not  meant  to  be  disavowed.  This  is  the  case  when  the  change 
is  referred  to  as  "sudden."  It  was  brought  to  pass,  realized, 
between  August  2.3  and  November  1,  1533.^  "Calvin,"  Lang  has 
said,  "  broke  suddenly  (not  gradually  but  suddenly)  with  all  that 
which  had  been  for  him  up  to  that  time  the  end  or  goal  of  his 
efforts,  his  ideal.  In  1532  he  contented  himself  with  a  com- 
pletely superficial  acquaintance  with  the  Vulgate.  To  the  end 
of  1533  the  study  of  Scripture  in  the  original  tongues  filled  his 

1  Lang,  p.  47  seq.         *  Tom.  i.     Livre  troisieme,  p.  327  seq.        '  vi.  p.  342. 


172  THE   REFORMATION 

heart."  "Before  1532,  and  perhaps  to  the  middle  of  1533,  the 
reUgious  question  is  for  him  as  if  it  did  not  exist."  ^  Dou- 
mergue  brings  much  evidence  to  show  that  the  successive 
changes  in  Calvin's  mind  are  not  connected  by  him  with  par- 
ticular designation  of  time.  Doumergue  ^  differs  pointedly  from 
Lefranc  ^  who  differentiates  in  a  marked  way  the  religious 
experience  of  Calvin  from  that  of  Luther.  ''The  definitive  of 
Calvin,"  says  Lefranc,  ''was  before  everything  of  logic  and  of 
reflection,  where  sentiment  counted  for  nothing  (ne  fut  pour 
rien)." 

Lang  sums  up  in  a  few  closing  pages  of  his  Essay  the  relation 
of  Calvin's  religious  experience  to  that  of  Luther  (pp.  53-57).  In 
the  recognition,  says  Lang,  that  we  can  do  nothing  of  oiu"  own 
strength  to  attain  the  approval  (Wohlgefallen)  of  God,  that 
His  grace,  however,  gives  without  any  merit,  to  the  believer, 
with  an  absolute  assurance,  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  peace  of 
mind — therein  for  the  author  of  the  Cop  Address  are  the  essential 
contents  of  the  Gospel :  where  else  could  Calvin  have  received 
this  conviction  save  from  his  own  experience?  At  the  point 
in  the  Address  where  Luther  is  left,  the  speaker,  affected  as  he 
was  by  the  religious  movement  in  Paris,  was  suddenly  getroffen 
by  the  hand  of  God.  He  heard  the  will  of  the  Law.  His  con- 
science was  burdened,  but  the  promise  of  the  Gospel  came  to 
him;  he  laid  hold  of  it  in  faith,  in  undoubting  assurance  that 
God  forgives  sin  and  without  any  merit  justifies.  His  highest 
good  becomes  peace  and  conscience,  peace  with  God.  Not 
from  the  Church  Postils  only,  but  soon  by  plunging  in  other 
writings  (in  Latin)  of  Luther,  he  revered  him  for  life  as  a  father 
in  Christ.  His  difference  from  Luther  is  in  giving  greater 
prominence  to  the  declaration  in  Scripture  of  the  pardoning 
grace  of  God.  The  peculiarity  of  Calvin  is  the  more  emphatic 
and  conspicuous  teaching  of  what  is  called  the  Formal  Principle 
of  Protestantism  —  the  authority  of  the  Bible. 

Leaving  Paris  after  Cop's  Address,  Calvin  wTnt  from  place  to 
place.  He  first  went  to  Angouleme,  where  he  enjoyed  the 
society  of  his  friend  Louis  du  Tillet  and  the  use  of  a  good  library. 
He  visited  Beam,  and  at  the  court  of  Margaret,  the  Queen  of 
Navarre,  sister  of  Francis  L,  he  met  the  aged  Lefevre,  the  father 

'  Doumergue,  p.  342.  '  La  Jeunesse  de  Calvin,  pp.  96,  97,  98. 

2  Tom.  I.  p.  350  N. 


CALVIN'S   INSTITUTES  173 

of  the  Reformation  in  France.  Then  followed  the  visit  to 
Noyon  to  resign  his  benefices.  Returning  to  Paris  after  his 
imprisonment,  he  was  again  in  peril.  The  intemperate  zeal 
of  the  Protestants  in  posting  placards  against  the  mass  stirred 
up  the  wrath  of  the  court,  and  he  was  again  obliged  to  fly. 
Not  without  a  struggle  and  tears  he  bade  farewell  to  his  country.^ 
He  tarried  again  at  Angouleme,  in  the  house  of  du  Tillet.  At 
about  this  time  (1534)  tradition  places  the  date  of  his  first  theo- 
logical publication,  the  "Psychopannychia,"  a  polemical  book 
against  the  doctrine  which  was  professed  by  Anabaptists  that  the 
soul  sleeps  between  death  and  the  resurrection.  It  may  in  its 
groundwork  have  been  composed  then,  but  it  appears  to  be 
shown  that  it  was  first  printed  in  1542.  At  Strasburg  he  was 
warmly  received  by  Bucer,  and  at  Basel  by  Grynseus  and  Capio. 
At  Basel  he  began  to  acquire  the  Hebrew  language,  and  was  able 
to  gratify  his  strong  inclination  for  retirement  and  study.  It  was 
here  that  he  wrote  his  ''  Institutes."  ^  The  first  edition,  of  1536, 
was  only  the  germ  of  the  work,  which  grew  in  successive  issues 
to  its  present  size.^  What  moved  him  to  the  composition  of  it 
was  the  cruel  persecution  to  which  his  brethren  were  subject  in 
France.  He  wished  to  remove  the  impression  that  they  were 
fanatical  Anabaptists,  seeking  the  overthrow  of  civil  order, 
which  their  oppressors,  in  order  to  pacify  the  displeasure  of 
German  Lutherans,  industriously  propagated.*  He  was  desirous 
of  bringing  Francis  I.  into  sympathy  with  the  new  doctrine. 
For  this  last  end  the  dedication  to  the  king,  which  has  been 
generally  admired  for  its  literary  merit,  and  as  a  condensed  and 
powerful  vindication  of  the  Protestant  cause,  was  composed. 
This  eloquent  appeal  to  the  justice  of  the  king  concludes  thus : 
"But  if  your  ears  are  so  preoccupied  with  the  whispers  of  the 
malevolent  as  to  leave  no  opportunity  for  the  accused  to  speak 
for  themselves,  and  if  those  outrageous  furies,  with  your  con- 
nivance, continue  to  persecute  with  imprisonments,  scourges, 

'-  Henry,  i.  156. 

-  The  interesting  literary  question  as  to  the  language  in  which  it  first  ap- 
peared, whether  Latin  or  French,  may,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as  settled.  It  was 
first  printed  in  Latin,  and  the  author's  name  was  attached  to  it.  See  the  Prole- 
gomena to  the  new  edition  of  Calvin's  writings,  edited  by  Baum,  Cunitz,  and  Reuss ; 
and  Stahelin,  i.  61.  Guizot,  however,  still  holds  that  the  first  edition  was  in 
French.     St.  Louis  and  Calvin,  p.  176.     It  appeared  in  1536. 

^  This  he  says  was  his  sole  motive:  "Neque  in  alium  finem,"  etc.  Pref.  to 
the  Psalms,  *  So  Stahelin,  in  Hauck,  Realencycl.,  etc.,  iii,  p.  658. 


174  THE   REFORMATION 

tortures,  confiscations,  and  flames,  we  shall  indeed,  like  sheep 
destined  to  the  slaughter,  be  reduced  to  the  greatest  extremities. 
Yet  shall  we  in  patience  possess  our  souls,  and  wait  for  the 
mighty  hand  of  the  Lord,  which  undoubtedly  will  in  time  ap- 
pear, and  show  itself  armed  for  the  deliverance  of  the  poor 
from  their  affliction,  and  for  the  punishment  of  their  despisers, 
who  now  exult  in  such  perfect  security.  May  the  Lord,  the 
King  of  Kings,  establish  your  throne  with  righteousness,  and 
your  kingdom  with  equity."  Although  this  famous  manual 
was  much  amplified  from  time  to  time,  until  it  appeared  with 
the  author's  latest  changes  and  additions  in  1559,  yet  the  doc- 
trine of  it  underwent  no  alteration,  and  the  identity  of  the 
work  was  always  preserved.^  We  may  notice  in  this  place 
some  of  Calvin's  characteristics  as  a  writer  and  a  man.  His 
direct  influence  was  predominantly  and  almost  exclusively 
upon  the  higher  classes  of  society.  He  and  his  system  acted 
powerfully  upon  the  people,  but  indirectly  through  the 
agency  of  others.  He  was  a  patrician  in  his  temperament. 
By  his  early  associations,  and  as  an  effect  of  his  culture,  he  ac- 
quired a  certain  refinement  and  decided  affinities  for  the  class 
elevated  by  birth  or  education.  This  was  one  of  his  points  of 
dissimilarity  to  Luther:  he  was  not  fitted,  like  the  German 
reformer  to  come  home  to  ''the  business  and  bosoms"  of  com- 
mon men.  He  had  not  the  popular  eloquence  of  Luther,  nor 
had  he  the  genius  that  left  its  impress  on  the  words  and  works 
of  the  Saxon  reformer;  but  he  was  a  more  exact  and  finished 
scholar  than  Luther.  The  Latin  style  of  Calvin  has  been  uni- 
versally praised  for  its  classical  purity.  He  was  a  terse  writer 
hating  difTuseness.  He  was  master  of  a  logical  method,  a  great 
lover  of  neatness  and  order.  In  all  his  words  there  glows  the 
fire  of  an  intense  conviction.  The  "Institutes"  are  in  truth 
a  continuous  oration,  in  which  the  stream  of  discussion  rolls 
onward  with  an  impetuous  current,  yet  always  keeps  within 
its  defined  channel.  The  work,  in  its  whole  tone,  is  removed 
as  far  as  possible  from  the  dry  treatises  of  scholastic  theology, 
with  which  it  has  often  been  classed.  In  forming  an  estimate 
of  Calvin,  as  a  thinker,  the  first  thing  to  observe  is  that  he  was 
a  Frenchman  and  a  lawyer.     His  nature  and  his  training  con- 

*  A  tabular  view  of  the  changes  in  the  successive  editions  is  presented  in  the 
latest  edition  of  Calvin's  writings,  Opera  (Reuss  et  al.),  vol.  i. 


CALVIN'S   INSTITUTES  175 

spired  to  make  him  eminently  logical  and  systematic.  That 
talent  for  organization  which  is  ascribed  to  his  countrymen  as  a 
national  trait  belonged  to  him  in  an  eminent  degree.  It  was 
manifested  in  the  products  of  his  intellect,  not  less  than  in  his 
practical  activity.  He  came  forward  at  a  moment  when  the 
ideas  of  the  Reformation  were  widely  diffused,  but  when  no 
adequate  reduction  of  them  to  a  systematic  form  had  been 
achieved.  The  dogmatic  treatise  of  Melancthon,  meritorious 
though  it  be,  was  of  comparatively  limited  scope.  The  field 
was  for  the  most  part  open;  and  when  Calvin  appeared  upon 
it,  he  was  at  once  recognized  as  fully  competent  for  his  task, 
and  greeted  by  Melancthon  himself  as  "the  theologian."  By 
the  enemies  of  Protestantism  his  work  was  styled  "  the  Koran  of 
the  heretics."  Of  the  clearness,  coherence,  and  symmetry  of 
all  its  discussions,  there  is  no  need  to  speak.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  theological  opinions  of  Calvin  remained  unchanged 
from  the  time  of  his  conversion  to  his  death. ^  This,  it  is  well 
known,  was  far  from  being  true  of  Luther,  or  of  Melancthon,  or 
even  of  Zwingli.  One  prime  characteristic  of  his  system  is  the 
steadfast,  consistent  adoption  of  the  Bible  as  the  sole  standard 
of  doctrine.  He  scouts  the  doctrine  that  the  truth  of  the  Bible 
rests  on  the  authority  of  the  Church.  The  Divine  authority 
of  the  Bible  can  be  proved  by  reason ;  assured  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel  and  a  spiritual  insight  are  imparted  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  What  cannot  verify  itself  by  the  explicit  authority 
of  Scripture  counts  for  nothing.  That  inbred  reverence  for  the 
ancient  Church  and  that  influence  of  Christian  antiquity,  which 
are  seen  in  Luther,  were  entirely  foreign  to  Calvin.  He  holds 
the  Fathers,  especially  Augustine,  in  esteem;  but  he  makes  no 
apologies  for  sharply  contradicting  them  all,  in  case  he  deems 
them  at  variance  with  Holy  Writ.  For  the  Papacy,  and  for 
the  tenets  and  rites  which  he  considers  the  "  impious  inventions 
of  men,"  without  warrant  from  the  Word  of  God,  he  feels 
an  intense  hatred,  not  unmingled  with  scorn.  Yet,  probably, 
none  of  the  Reformers  speak  so  often  and  with  so  much  defer- 
ence of  the  Church.     But  by  the  Church  he  means  something 

1  Beza  has  noticed  this  fact  —  Vita  Calvini,  xxxi.  Lecky  {History  of  Ra- 
tionalism, i.  373)  says,  speaking  of  the  eucharistic  controversy:  "Calvin  only 
arrived  at  his  final  views  after  a  long  series  of  oscillations."  This  is  quite  erro- 
neous; there  is  no  reason  for  thinking  that  Calvin  ever  had  but  one  opinion  on 
this  subject  after  his  conversion. 


176  THE   REFORMATION 

different  from  the  sacerdotal  organization  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
hc  body.  He  holds  to  the  Church  invisible,  composed  of  true 
believers;  and  to  the  Church  visible,  the  criteria  of  which  are 
the  right  administration  of  the  sacraments,  and  the  teaching  of 
the  Word.  For  the  visible  Church,  as  thus  constituted,  he 
feels  the  deepest  reverence,  and  holds  that  out  of  it  there  is  no 
salvation.  The  schismatic  cuts  himself  off  from  Christ.  For 
the  Church,  as  established  after  the  model  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, he  demands  a  submission  little  short  of  that  which  the 
Roman  Catholic  pays  to  the  authorized  expounders  of  his  faith.* 
But  the  striking,  the  peculiar,  feature  of  Calvin's  system,  is  the 
doctrine  of  Predestination.  This  doctrine,  at  the  outset,  in- 
deed, was  common  to  all  of  the  Reformers.  Predestination  is 
asserted  by  Luther,  in  his  book  on  the  "Servitude  of  the  Will," 
even  in  relation  to  wickedness,  in  terms  more  emphatic  than 
the  most  extreme  statements  of  Calvin.  Melancthon,  for  a 
considerable  period,  wrote  in  the  same  strain.  Zwingli,  in  his 
metaphysical  theory,  did  not  differ  from  his  brother  Reformers. 
They  were  united  in  reviving  the  Augustinian  theology,  in 
opposition  to  the  Pelagian  doctrine,  which  affected  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree  all  the  schools  of  Catholic  theology.  It  is  very 
important  to  understand  the  motives  of  the  Reformers  in  this 
proceeding.  Calvin  was  not  a  speculative  philosopher  who 
thought  out  a  necessitarian  theory  and  defended  it  for  the 
reason  that  he  considered  it  capable  of  being  logically  estab- 
lished. It  is  true  that  the  keynote  in  his  system  was  a 
profound  sense  of  the  exaltation  of  God.  Nothing  could  be  ad- 
mitted that  seemed  to  clash  in  the  least  with  His  universal  con- 
trol, or  to  cast  a  shade  upon  His  omniscience  and  omnipotence. 
But  the  direct  grounds  or  sources  of  his  doctrine  were  practical. 
Predestination  to  him  is  the  correlate  of  human  dependence; 
the  counterpart  of  the  doctrine  of  grace;  the  antithesis  to  sal- 
vation by  merit;  the  implied  consequence  of  man's  complete 
bondage  to  sin.  In  election,  it  is  involved  that  man's  salvation 
is  not  his  own  work,  but,  wholly,  the  work  of  the  grace  of  God; 
and  in  election,  also,  there  is  laid  a  sure  foundation  for  the 
believer's  security  under  all  the  assaults  of  temptation.  It  is 
practical  interests  which  Calvin  is  sedulous  to  guard;  he  clings 

'  See,  for  example,  his  Acta  Synodi  TridentincB  cum  Antidoto  (1547),  or  Henry, 
i.  312. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   PREDESTINATION  177 

to  the  doctrine  for  what  he  considers  its  religious  value,  and  it 
is  no  more  than  justice  to  him  to  remember  that  he  habitually 
styles  the  tenet,  which  proved  to  be  so  obnoxious,  an  unfathom- 
able mystery,  an  abyss  into  which  no  mortal  mind  can  descend. 
And,  whether  consistently  or  not,  there  is  the  most  earnest 
assertion  of  the  moral  and  responsible  nature  of  man.  Augus- 
tine had  held  that  in  the  fall  of  Adam  the  entire  race  were  in- 
volved in  a  common  act  and  a  common  catastrophe.  The  will 
is  not  destroyed;  it  is  still  free  to  sin,  but  is  utterly  disabled  as 
regards  holiness.  Out  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  all  of  whom  are 
alike  guilty,  God  chooses  a  part  to  be  the  recipients  of  his  mercy, 
whom  He  purifies  by  an  irresistible  influence,  but  leaves  the 
rest  to  suffer  the  penalty  which  they  have  justly  brought  upon 
themselves.  In  the  ''Institutes,"  Calvm  does  what  Luther  had 
done  in  his  book  against  Erasmus;  he  makes  the  Fall  itself, 
the  primal  transgression,  the  object  of  an  efficient  decree.  In 
this  particular  he  goes  beyond  Augustine,  and  apparently  affords 
a  sanction  to  the  extreme,  or  supra-lapsarian  type  of  theology, 
which  afterwards  found  numerous  defenders  —  which  traces 
sin  to  the  direct  agency  of  God,  and  even  founds  the  distinction 
of  right  and  wrong  ultimately  on  His  omnipotent  will.^  But 
when  Calvin  was  called  upon  to  define  his  doctrine  more  care- 
fully, as  in  the  Consensus  Genevensis,  he  confines  himself  to  the 
assertion  of  a  permissive  decree  —  a  volitive  permission  —  in 
the  case  of  the  first  sin.  In  other  words,  he  does  not  overstep 
the  Augustinian  position.  He  explicitly  avers  that  every  de- 
cree of  the  Almighty  springs  from  reasons  which,  though  hidden 
from  us,  are  good  and  sufficient;  that  is  to  say,  he  founds  will 
upon  right,  and  not  right  upon  will.^  He  differs,  however,  both 
from  Augustine  and  Luther,  in  affirming  that  none  who  are 
once  converted  fall  from  a  state  of  grace,  the  number  of  believers 
being  coextensive  with  the  number  of  the  elect.  The  main 
peculiarity  of  Calvin's  treatment  of  this  subject,  as  compared 
with  the  course  pursued  by  the  other  Reformers,  is  the  greater 
prominence  which  he  gives  to  Predestination.  It  stands  in  the 
foreground;  it  is  never  left  out  of  sight.  Luther's  practical 
handling  of  this  dogma  was  quite  different.     Under  his  influ- 

1  Inst.,  in.  xxiii.  6  seq. 

2  Opera  (Amst.  ed.),  torn.  viii.  638,  "Clare  affirmo  nihil  decemere  sine  optima 
causa :  quae  si  hodie  nobis  incognita  est,  ultimo  die  patefiet. " 


178  THE   REFORMATION 

ence  it  retreated  more  and  more  into  the  background,  until 
not  only  in  Melancthon's  system,  but  also  in  the  later  Lutheran 
theology,  unconditional  Predestination  disappeared  altogether. 

As  a  commentator,  the  ability  of  Calvin  is  very  great.  The 
first  of  his  series  of  works  in  this  department  —  his  work  on 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  —  was  issued  while  he  was  at  Stras- 
burg,  after  his  expulsion  from  Geneva.  The  preparation  of  his 
commentaries  was  always  the  most  congenial  of  his  occupations. 
If  his  readers,  he  once  said,  gathered  as  much  profit  from  the 
perusal  as  he  did  from  the  composition  of  them,  he  should  have 
no  reason  to  regret  the  labor  which  they  had  cost.  He  was 
possessed  of  an  exegetical  tact  which  few  have  equaled.  He 
has  the  true  spirit  of  a  scholar.  He  detests  irrelevant  talk 
upon  a  passage,  but  unfolds  its  meaning  in  concise  and  pointed 
terms.  He  is  manly,  never  evades  difficulties,  but  always 
grapples  with  them;  and  he  is  candid.  He  makes,  on  points 
of  dogma,  qualifications  and  occasional  concessions  which  are 
generally  left  out  of  his  polemical  treatises,  but  which  are  in- 
dispensable to  a  correct  appreciation  of  his  opinions.  If  he 
created  an  epoch  in  doctrinal  theology,  it  is  equally  true  that 
he  did  much  to  found  a  new  era,  for  which,  however,  Melancthon 
and  others  had  paved  the  way,  in  the  exegesis  of  the  Scriptures. 
Luther  seized  on  the  main  idea  of  a  passage,  but  was  less  pre- 
cise as  a  philological  critic.  The  palm  belongs  to  Luther,  as  a 
translator,  to  Calvin,  as  an  interpreter  of  the  Word. 

Notwithstanding  the  radical  principles  of  Calvin,  it  deserves 
to  be  remarked  that  as  a  practical  Reformer,  he  was,  in  some 
marked  particulars,  not  the  extremist  which  he  is  commonly 
supposed  to  have  been.  He  did  not  favor  the  iconoclastic 
measures  of  men  like  Knox.  He  was  not  even  hostile  to 
bishops  as  a  jure  humano  arrangement.*  He  would  not  have 
cared  to  abolish  the  four  Christian  festivals,  which  the  Genevan 
Church,  without  his  agency,  early  discarded.  In  his  epistles  to 
Somerset,  the  Protector  in  the  time  of  Edward  VI.,  and  to  the 
English  Reformers,  he  criticises  freely  the  Anglican  Church. 
Too  much,  he  said,  was  conceded  to  weak  brethren ;  to  bear 
with  the  weak  does  not  mean  that  "  we  are  to  humor  blockheads 
who  wish  for  this  or  that,  without  knowing  why."  He  thought 
it  a  scandal,  he  wrote  to  Cranmer,  that  so  many  papal  corrup- 

»  Henry,  ii.  138,  139, 


CALVIN'S   PERSONAL   TRAITS  179 

tions  remain;  for  example,  that  "idle  gluttons  are  supported 
to  chant  vespers  in  an  unknown  tongue."  But  he  was  indif- 
ferent respecting  various  customs  and  ceremonies,  which  a  more 
rigid  Puritanism  made  it  a  point  of  conscience  to  abjure. 

There  are  marked  personal  traits  of  Calvin,  which  exhibit 
themselves  in  his  letters  and  other  writings,  and  which  we  shall 
find  illustrated  in  the  course  of  his  life.  Instead  of  the  geniality, 
which  is  one  of  the  native  qualities  of  Luther,  we  find  an  acerb- 
ity, which  is  felt  more  easily  than  described,  and  which,  more 
than  anything  else,  has  inspired  multitudes  with  aversion  to 
him.  Beza,  his  disciple,  friend,  and  biographer,  states  that  in 
his  boyhood  he  was  the  censor  of  the  faults  of  his  mates.^ 
Through  life,  he  had  a  tone,  in  reminding  men  of  their  real  or 
supposed  delinquencies,  which  provoked  resentment.  To  those 
much  older  than  himself,  to  men  like  Cranmer  and  Melancthon, 
he  wrote  in  this  unconsciously  cutting  style.  There  was  much 
in  the  truthfulness,  fidelity,  and  courage,  which  he  manifests 
even  in  his  reproofs,  to  command  respect.  Yet,  there  was  a 
tart  quality  which,  coupled  with  his  unyielding  tenacity  of 
opinion,  was  adapted  to  provoke  disesteem.  We  learn  from 
Calvin  himself,  that  Melancthon,  mild  as  he  was  naturally,  was 
so  offended  at  the  style  of  one  of  his  admonitory  epistles  that 
he  tore  it  in  pieces.  The  wretched  health  of  Calvin,  with  the 
enormous  burdens  of  labor  that  rested  upon  him  for  years,  had 
an  unfavorable  effect  upon  a  temper  naturally  irritable.  He 
was  occasionally  so  carried  away  by  gusts  of  passion  that  he 
lost  all  self-control.^  He  acknowledges  this  fault  with  the 
utmost  frankness;  he  had  tried  in  vain,  he  says,  to  tame  "the 
wild  beast  of  his  anger;"  and  on  his  death-bed  he  asked  par- 
don of  the  Senate  of  Geneva  for  outbursts  of  passion,  while  at 
the  same  time  he  thanked  them  for  their  forbearance.  The 
later  biographers  of  Calvin,  even  such  as  admire  him  most, 
have  remarked  that  his  piety  was  unduly  tinged  with  the  Old 
Testament  spirit.  It  is  significant  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  texts  of  his  homilies  and  sermons,  as  far  as  they  have  been 
preserved,  are  from  the  ancient  Scriptures.     Homage  to  law  is 

*  It  was  a  current  phrase  at  Geneva:  "Besser  mit  Beza  in  der  Holle  als  mit 
Calvin  im  Himmel."     Henry,  i.  171. 

2  See  his  Letter  to  Farel  (April,  1539),  Henry,  i.  256.  See,  also,  p.  435  seq., 
ii.  432.  "The  mass  of  his  occupations,"  Calvin  says,  "had  confirmed  him  in  an 
irritable  habit. "     Henry,  i.  465. 


180  THE   REFORMATION 

a  part  of  his  being.  To  bring  thought,  feehng,  and  will,  to 
bring  his  own  life,  and  the  lives  of  others,  to  bring  Church  and 
State,  into  subjection  to  law,  is  his  principal  aim.  He  is  over- 
come with  awe  at  the  inconceivable  power  and  holiness  of  God. 
This  thought  is  uppermost  in  his  mind.  Of  his  conversion,  he 
writes:  "God  suddenly  produced  it;  he  suddenly  subdued  my 
heart  to  the  obedience  of  His  will."  To  obey  the  will  of  God 
was  his  supreme  purpose  in  life,  and  in  this  purpose  his  soul 
was  undivided;  no  mutinous  feeling  was  suffered  to  interpose 
a  momentary  resistance.  But  the  tender,  filial  temper  often 
seems  lost  in  the  feeling  of  the  subject  toward  his  lawful  Ruler. 
A  sense  of  the  exaltation  of  God  not  only  takes  away  all  fear  of 
men,  but  seems  to  be  attended  with  some  loss  of  sensibility 
with  regard  to  their  lot.  To  promote  the  honor  of  God,  and  to 
secure  that  end  at  all  hazards,  is  the  chief  object  in  view.  What- 
ever, in  his  judgment,  brings  dishonor  upon  the  Almighty,  as, 
for  example,  attacks  made  upon  the  truth,  moves  his  indigna- 
tion, and  he  feels  bound,  in  conscience,  to  confront  such  attacks 
with  a  pitiless  hostility.  He  considers  it  an  imperative  duty, 
as  he  expressly  declares,  to  hate  the  enemies  of  God.  In  refer- 
ence to  them,  he  says :  "I  would  rather  be  crazed  than  not  be 
angry."  ^  Hence,  though  not  consciously  vindictive,  and  though 
really  placable  in  various  instances  where  he  was  personally 
wronged,  he  was  on  fire  the  moment  that  he  conceived  the  honor 
of  God  to  be  assailed.  How  difficult  it  would  be  for  such  a 
man  to  discriminate  between  personal  feeling  and  zeal  for  a 
cause  with  which  he  felt  himself  to  be  thoroughly  identified,  it 
is  easy  to  understand.  Calvin  did  not  touch  human  life  at  so 
many  points  as  did  Luther ;  and  having  a  less  broad  sympathy 
himself,  he  has  attracted  less  sympathy  from  others.  The 
poetic  inspiration  that  gave  birth  to  the  stirring  hymns  of  the 
German  Reformer  was  not  among  his  gifts.  He  wrote  a  poem 
in  Latin  hexameters,  on  the  triumph  of  Christ,  which  was  com- 
posed at  Worms  during  the  Conference  there  —  in  which  he 
describes  Eck,  Cochlseus,  and  other  Catholic  combatants,  as 
dragged  after  the  chariot  of  the  victorious  Redeemer.  A  few 
hymns,  mostly  versions  of  Psalms,  have  lately  been  traced  to 
his  pen.^    It  has  been  noticed  that  although  he  spent  the  most 

*  Henry,  i.  464. 

2  See  Calvini  Opera  (Reuss  et  al.),  vol.  vi.     One  of  these  hymns,  translated  by 
Mrs.  H.  B.  Smith,  is  in  Schafif's  collection  of  religious  poetry,  Christ  in  Song  (1869). 


CALVIN'S   PERSONAL  TRAITS  181 

of  his  life  on  the  borders  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  he  nowhere 
alludes  to  the  beautiful  scenery  about  him.  Yet,  there  is  some- 
thing impressive,  though  it  be  a  defect,  in  this  exclusive 
absorption  of  his  mind  in  things  invisible.  When  we  look  at 
his  extraordinary  intellect,  at  his  culture  —  which  opponents, 
like  Bossuet,  have  been  forced  to  commend  —  at  the  invincible 
energy  which  made  him  endure  with  more  than  stoical  fortitude 
infirmities  of  body  under  which  most  men  would  have  sunk,  and 
to  perform,  in  the  midst  of  them,  an  incredible  amount  of  men- 
tal labor ;  when  we  see  him,  a  scholar  naturally  fond  of  seclusion, 
physically  timid,  and  recoiling  from  notoriety  and  strife,  ab- 
juring the  career  that  was  most  to  his  taste,  and  plunging  with 
a  single-hearted,  disinterested  zeal,  and  an  indomitable  will, 
into  a  hard,  protracted  contest,  and  when  we  follow  his  steps, 
and  see  what  things  he  effected,  we  cannot  deny  him  the  attri- 
butes of  greatness.  The  Senate  of  Geneva,  after  his  death, 
spoke  of  "the  majesty"  of  his  character. 

Calvin  published  the  first  edition  of  the  Institutes,  without 
the  knowledge  of  any  one,  at  Basel,  so  averse  was  he  to  noto- 
riety. Apart  from  the  repute  of  this  work,  his  fame  as  an  acute, 
promising  theologian  was  extending.  Having  visited  Italy, 
and  remained  for  a  while  at  Ferrara,  at  the  court  of  the  accom- 
plished Duchess,  the  daughter  of  Louis  XII.,  and  the  protector 
of  the  Protestants,  with  whom  he  kept  up  a  correspondence 
afterwards,  he  returned  to  Basel,  and  thence  made  a  secret  visit 
to  France,  and  to  his  native  place.  On  account  of  the  obstruc- 
tion of  the  route  through  Lorraine,  by  the  army  of  Charles  V., 
he  set  out  to  return  by  the  way  of  Geneva.  There  he  arrived 
late  in  July,  1536,  with  the  design  of  tarrying  but  a  single  night ; 
after  which  he  expected  to  pursue  his  journey  to  Basel.  Here 
occurred  the  event  that  shaped  the  future  course  of  his  life. 

The  war  of  Cappel,  in  which  Zwingli  had  fallen,  had  left 
the  preponderance  in  the  Swiss  Confederacy  in  the  hands  of 
the  Catholics.  They  used  their  power  to  humiliate  their  adver- 
saries in  various  ways,  and  to  reestablish  the  old  religion  in  some 
districts  from  which  it  had  been  expelled  or  in  which  the  people 
were  divided.  The  leading  cities  of  Zurich,  Berne,  and  Basel, 
however,  remained  faithful  to  the  Reformation.  A  mixture  of 
political  circumstances  and  religious  influences  at  length  created 
a  new  seat  for  Protestantism  at  Geneva. 


182  THE   REFORMATION 

Geneva,  situated  on  the  border  of  Lake  Leman,  was  a  frag- 
ment of  the  old  Kingdom  of  Burgundy,  and  was  governed  for 
many  centuries  by  the  bishop,  who  was  chosen  by  the  canons 
of  the  Cathedral.  The  bishop,  by  an  arrangement  with  the 
neighboring  counts  of  Geneva,  had  committed  to  them  his 
civil  jurisdiction;  but  on  acceding  to  office,  he  always  swore 
to  maintain  the  franchises  and  customs  of  the  citizens.  The 
counts  held  the  castle  on  the  Isle  of  the  Rhone.  Toward  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  this  office  of  Vidame  or  Vice-regent 
was  transferred  from  them  to  the  dukes  of  Savoy.  The  city 
for  the  most  part  ruled  itself  after  a  republican  form,  and  the 
Emperors  Frederic  Barbarossa,  Charles  IV.,  and  Sigismund, 
as  a  means  of  protecting  it  against  encroachments  on  the  part 
of  Savoy  and  of  the  counts  of  Geneva,  recognized  the  place 
as  a  city  of  the  Empire.  Once  a  year  the  four  syndics  who 
practically  managed  the  government  were  chosen  by  the  assem- 
bly of  citizens.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
ambitious  projects  of  the  Vidames  led  the  Genevans  to  look  for 
help  and  support  to  the  Swiss  cantons.  Charles  III.,  who  be- 
came Duke  of  Savoy  in  1504,  entered  into  a  struggle,  for  the 
subjugation  of  Geneva,  which  continued  twenty  years.  Find- 
ing it  impossible  to  secure  his  end  by  artful  negotiation  with 
the  citizens,  he,  with  the  assistance  of  Pope  Leo  X.,  forced  upon 
them,  in  1513,  John,  the  Bastard  of  Savoy,  who  became  bishop 
under  the  stipulation  that  he  would  give  the  control  of  the 
city,  as  far  as  civil  affairs  were  concerned,  into  the  hands  of  the 
Duke.  The  citizens,  under  the  lead  of  Bonivard,  Berthelier, 
and  other  patriots,  made  a  brave  resistance.  Tlie  Duke  ac- 
quired the  mastery,  and  Berthelier  was  put  to  death.  The 
revolution  which  liberated  the  city  from  the  tyranny  of  Savoy 
and  restored  its  freedom  was  achieved  by  the  aid  of  Berne  and 
Freiburg,  The  Genevans  were  divided  into  two  parties,  the 
Confederates  (Eidgenossen),  who  were  for  striking  hands  with 
the  Swiss,  and  the  Mamelukes,  or  adherents  of  the  Duke.  The 
former  were  successful.  The  office  of  Vidame  was  abolished, 
and  civil  and  military  power  passed  from  the  bishop  into  the 
hands  of  the  people  (1533). 

The  civil  was  followed  by  an  ecclesiastical  revolution.  Berne 
became  Protestant;  Freiburg  remained  Catholic.  From  Berne 
a   Protestant   influence   was   exerted   in   Geneva.     The   young 


PROTESTANTISM   ESTABLISHED   IN   GENEVA  183 

people  made  use  of  their  liberty  to  disregard  the  prescriptions 
of  the  Church  in  respect  to  abstinence  from  meat  on  fast  days, 
and  disputes  arose  between  the  citizens  and  the  ecclesiastics. 
Some  effort  was  made  to  correct  the  dissolute  habits  of  the 
priests,  of  whom  there  were  three  hundred  in  Geneva,  in  order 
to  take  a  potent  weapon  out  of  the  hands  of  the  reformers.  But 
Protestantism,  by  the  efforts  of  Farel  and  other  preachers, 
gained  ground,  until  at  length,  in  1535,  with  the  aid  of  Berne, 
a  second  revolution  took  place,  in  which  the  bishop  was  expelled, 
and  Protestantism  was  established.  In  connection  with  this 
change,  the  adjacent  territory  was  conquered,  and  with  it  the 
castles  which  had  served  as  strongholds  of  the  Duke,  and  as  con- 
venient places  of  shelter  for  fugitives,  and  for  the  organization 
of  attacks  upon  the  city.  Geneva  was  reformed,  and  at  the 
same  time  gained  its  independence.^ 

The  principal  agent  in  planting  the  new  doctrine  in  Geneva 
had  been  William  Farel,  born  in  1489,  of  a  noble  family  in  Gap, 
in  Dauphine;  a  convert  to  Protestantism,  driven  out  of  France 
by  persecution,  and  welcomed  to  Switzerland  as  one  able  to  preach 
to  the  French  population  in  their  own  language.  Honest  and 
fearless,  but  intemperate  in  language  and  conduct,  he  fulminated 
against  the  tenets  and  practices  of  Rome,  in  city  and  country, 
in  the  churches  or  by  the  wayside,  wherever  he  could  find  an 
audience.  Wherever  he  preached,  his  stentorian  voice  rose 
above  the  loudest  tumult  that  was  raised  to  drown  it.  On  one 
occasion  he  seized  the  relics  from  the  hand  of  a  priest  in  a 
procession,  and  flung  them  into  an  adjacent  river.  He  was 
frequently  beaten  and  his  life  put  in  imminent  peril.  He  was 
said  to  have  denounced  Erasmus  at  Basel  as  another  Balaam, 
and  Erasmus  repaid  the  compliment  by  describing  him,  in  a 
letter,  as  the  most  arrogant,  abusive,  and  shameless  man  he 
had  ever  met  with.^  Yet  Farel  did  not  limit  himself  to  de- 
nunciation. He  understood  well,  and  knew  how  to  inculcate, 
eloquently,  the  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Protestant  faith. 
His  earliest  attempt  in  Geneva  was  in  1532,  immediately  after 

^  The  revolutions  in  Geneva  and  the  introduction  of  the  Reformation  are  de- 
scribed by  Ruchat,  Histoire  de  la  Reformation  de  la  Suisse,  nouvelle  ed.,  7  vols. 
Nyon,  1835-1838  ;  also  by  Kampschulte,  Johann  Calvin,  etc.,  vol.  i. ;  and  in  great 
detail  by  Merle  D'Aubign^,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Europe  in  the  Time  of 
Calvin.  See,  also,  Mignet's  Essay  on  Calvinism  in  Geneva  (Memoirs  Hist.,  3d 
ed.,  Paris,  1854). 

*  Opera,  iii.  823.     Kirchhofer,  Das  Leben  W.  Farels,  c.  iv. 


184  THE   REFORMATION 

the  first  revolution.  He  was  then  driven  from  the  city,  and 
owed  his  Kfe  to  the  bursting  of  a  gun  that  was  aimed  at  him. 
The  second  time  he  was  more  successful.  The  new  doctrine 
was  eagerly  heard  and  won  numerous  disciples.  At  the  po- 
litical revolution,  which  expelled  the  bishop,  the  Protestant 
faith  was  adopted  by  the  solemn  act  of  the  citizens.  The 
general  council,  or  the  assembly  of  citizens,  legalized  the  new 
order  of  divine  service,  which  included  the  administration  of 
the  Supper  thrice  in  the  year ;  abolished  all  the  festivals  except 
Sunday,  and  prohibited  worldly  sports,  such  as  dances  and 
masquerades.  The  citizens  took  an  oath  to  cast  off  the  Rom- 
ish doctrine  and  to  live  according  to  the  rule  of  the  Gospel. 
But  signs  of  disaffection  soon  appeared.  A  large  portion  of 
the  inhabitants  of  this  prosperous,  luxurious,  and  pleasure- 
loving  city  soon  grew  impatient  of  the  new  restraints  which 
they  had  accepted  in  the  moment  of  exhilaration  over  their 
newly  gained  political  independence.  They  cried  out  openly 
against  the  preachers  and  demanded  freedom. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  morals  of  Geneva  were 
in  a  low  state.  The  Savoyards  had  sought  to  secure  the  ad- 
herence of  the  young  men  by  means  of  dances  and  convivial 
entertainments;  and  Berthelier  endeavored  to  baffle  this  pur- 
pose by  joining  with  them  himself  in  their  noisy  banquets  and 
licentious  amusements.  The  priests  and  monks,  according  to 
trustworthy  contemporary  accounts,  were  exceptionally  profli- 
gate.^ The  prostitutes,  over  whom  there  was  placed  a  queen 
who  was  regularly  sworn  to  the  fulfillment  of  prescribed  func- 
tions, were  far  from  being  confined  to  the  quarter  of  the  city 
which  was  specially  assigned  to  them.  Gambling  houses  and 
wine  shops  were  scattered  over  the  town.  The  various  motives 
of  opposition  to  the  new  system  were  sufficient  to  develop  a 
powerful  party  that  demanded  the  old  customs  and  the  former 
liberty.  They  clamored  for  deliverance  from  the  yoke  of  the 
preachers. 

Geneva  was  in  this  factious,  confused  state  when  Calvin 
arrived  there,  and  took  his  lodgings  at  an  inn,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  remaining  only  for  the  night.  In  his  Preface  to  the 
Commentary  on  the  Psalms,  which  contains  the  most  interest- 
ing passages  of  autobiography  that  we  possess  from  his  pen, 

»  Kampschulte,  i.  90  seq. 


CALVIN'S   EARLY   WORK   AT    GENEVA  185 

he  gives  an  account  of  his  interview  with  Farel,  to  whom  his 
arrival  had  been  reported  by  his  friend,  Du  Tillet.  Farel 
besought  him  to  remain  and  assist  him  in  his  work.  Calvin 
declined,  pleading  his  unwillingness  to  bind  himself  to  any  one 
place,  and  his  desire  to  prosecute  his  studies.  Seeing  that  his 
persuasions  were  fruitless,  Farel  told  him  that  he  might  put 
forward  his  studies  as  a  pretext,  but  that  the  curse  of  God 
would  light  on  him  if  he  refused  to  engage  in  His  work.  Calvin 
often  refers  to  this  declaration,  uttered  with  the  fervor  of  a 
prophet.  He  says  that  he  was  struck  with  terror,  and  felt  as 
if  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  had  been  stretched  out  from  heaven 
and  laid  upon  him.  He  gave  up  his  opposition.  "Farel," 
it  has  been  said,  ''gave  Geneva  to  the  Reformation,  and  Calvin 
to  Geneva."  He  at  once  began  his  work,  not  taking  the  post 
of  a  preacher  at  first,  but  giving  theological  lectures  of  an  exe- 
getical  sort  in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter.  He  composed  hastily 
a  catechism  for  the  instruction  of  the  young,  which  he  deemed 
a  thing  essential  in  the  guidance  of  a  church.  A  confession  of 
faith,  drawn  up  by  Farel,  was  presented  to  all  the  people,  and 
by  them  formally  adopted.  A  body  of  regulations  relating  to 
church  services  and  discipline,  containing  stringent  provisions, 
was  likewise  ratified  and  put  in  operation.  Opposition  to  the 
doctrines  and  deviation  from  the  practices  thus  sanctioned 
were  penal  offenses.  A  hairdresser,  for  example,  for  arranging 
a  bride's  hair  in  what  was  deemed  an  unseemly  manner,  was 
imprisoned  for  two  days;  and  the  mother,  with  two  female 
friends,  who  had  aided  in  the  process,  suffered  the  same  penalty. 
Dancing  and  card  playing  were  also  punished  by  the  magis- 
trate. They  were  not  wrong  in  themselves,  Calvin  said,  but 
they  had  been  so  abused  that  there  was  no  other  course  but  to 
prohibit  them  altogether.  He  who  so  dreaded  a  tumult,  not 
only  had  to  encounter  Anabaptist  fanatics  who  appeared  in 
Geneva,  but  soon  found  himself,  with  his  associates,  in  conflict 
with  the  government,  and  with  the  majority  of  the  citizens 
who  rebelled  against  the  strictness  of  the  new  regime.^    At  the 

'  He  was  compelled,  much  to  his  mortification,  to  withstand  an  attack  of  a 
different  kind  from  another  quarter.  He  was  charged  with  Arianism  and  Sabel- 
lianism.  See  Henry,  i.  178  seq.  Calvin  was  cautious  as  to  the  terms  which  he 
used  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity,  and  did  not  insist  on  the  word  person.  See 
Institutes,  b.  i.  xiii.  5.  For  his  opinion  of  the  Athanasian  creed,  see  Kampschulte, 
i.  297. 


186  THE   REFORMATION 

head  of  the  party  of  opposition,  or  of  the  Libertines,  as  they 
were  styled  by  the  supporters  of  Calvin,  were  Amy  Perrin,  Van- 
del,  and  Jean  Philippe,  who  had  been  among  the  first  advocates 
of  the  Reformation.  In  their  ranks  were  many  of  the  Confed- 
erates, or  Eidgenossen,  who  had  fought  for  the  independence 
of  the  city.  At  Geneva,  the  baptismal  font,  the  four  festivals 
of  Christmas,  New  Year's  Day,  the  Annunciation,  and  the  As- 
cension, and  the  use  of  unleavened  bread  in  the  sacrament,  all 
of  which  was  retained  in  Berne,  had  been  discarded.  The 
opponents  of  the  new  system  called  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Bernese  ceremonies.  Finding  themselves  thwarted  by  the 
authorities  in  the  enforcement  of  church  discipline,  on  Easter 
Sunday  (1538),  the  ministers,  Calvin,  Farel,  and  Viret,  preached 
in  spite  of  the  prohibition  of  the  Syndics,  and  also  took  the  bold 
step  of  refusing  to  administer  the  sacrament.  Thereupon,  by 
a  vote  of  the  Council,  which  was  confirmed  the  next  day  by  the 
general  assembly  of  the  citizens,  they  were  banished  from  the 
city.  Failing  in  their  efforts  to  secure  the  intervention  of 
Berne,  and  in  other  negotiations  having  reference  to  their  res- 
toration, they  parted  from  one  another.  Farel  went  to  Neuf- 
chatel,  and  Calvin  found  a  cordial  reception  in  Strasburg.  It 
was  a  general  feeling,  in  which  Calvin  himself  shared,  that  the 
preachers  had  gone  imprudently  far  in  their  requirements.  But 
the  joy  of  Calvin  at  being  delivered  from  the  anxieties  which 
he  had  suffered,  and  in  finding  himself  at  liberty  to  devote  him- 
self to  his  books,  was  greater,  he  says,  than  under  the  circum- 
stances was  becoming.  But  soon  he  was  solicited  by  Bucer  to 
take  charge  of  the  church  of  French  refugees  who  were  at  Stras- 
burg. Once  more  he  was  intimidated  by  Bucer's  earnest  ap- 
peal, who  reminded  him  of  the  example  of  the  fugitive  prophet, 
Jonah.  Though  his  pecuniary  support  was  small,  so  that  he 
was  compelled  to  take  lodgers  and  even  to  sell  his  books  to  get 
the  means  of  living,  he  was  satisfied  and  happy,  "\\niile  at  Stras- 
burg, he  was  brought  into  intercourse  with  the  Saxon  theo- 
logians at  the  religious  conferences  held  between  the  years  1539 
and  1541,  at  Frankfort,  at  Worms,  and  at  Hagenau,  and  in 
connection  with  the  Diet  at  Ratisbon,  where  Contarini  appeared 
as  the  representative  of  the  Pope.  Like  Luther,  Calvin  had  no 
faith  in  the  practicableness  of  a  compromise  with  the  Catholics, 
and  the  negotiations  became  more  and  more  irksome  to  him. 


CALVIN,   LUTHER,   AND   MELANCTHON  187 

His  ignorance  of  the  German  language  occasioned  him  some 
embarrassment.  His  talents  and  learning  were  fully  recog- 
nized by  the  German  theologians,  and  with  Melancthon  he 
formed  a  friendship  which  continued  with  a  temporary,  partial 
interruption,  until  they  were  separated  by  death.  To  the  com- 
promises of  the  Leipsic  Interim,  Calvin  was  inflexibly  opposed. 
On  the  great  controverted  point  of  the  Eucharist,  he  and 
Melancthon  were  agreed,  and  the  latter  confided  to  him  the 
anxieties  which  weighed  heavily  upon  him  on  account  of  the 
jealousy  on  the  Lutheran  side,  which  was  awakened  by  his 
change  of  opinion.  With  Luther,  Calvin  never  came  into  per- 
sonal contact;  but  he  was  delighted  to  hear  that  the  Saxon 
leader  had  read  some  of  his  books  with  ''singular  satisfaction," 
had  betrayed  no  irritation  at  his  difTerence  on  the  question  of 
the  Supper,  and  had  expressed  a  high  degree  of  confidence  in 
his  ability  to  be  useful  to  the  Church.  He  thought  Luther  a 
much  greater  man  than  Zwingli,  but  that  both  were  one-sided 
and  too  much  under  the  sway  of  prejudice  in  their  combat  upon 
the  Eucharist.  He  exclaims  that  he  should  never  cease  to 
revere  Luther,  if  Luther  were  to  call  him  a  devil. ^  When  called 
upon  at  a  later  day,  after  the  death  of  Melancthon,  to  take  the 
field  against  bigoted  Lutherans,  he  breaks  out  with  the  exclama- 
tion :  "  0  Philip  Melancthon,  I  direct  my  words  to  thee  who 
now  livest  before  God  with  Jesus  Christ,  and  there  art  waiting 
for  us  till  we  are  gathered  with  thee  to  that  blessed  rest !  A 
hundred  times  hast  thou  said,  when,  wearied  with  labor  and 
oppressed  with  anxieties,  thou  hast  laid  thy  head  affectionately 
upon  my  bosom:  '0  that,  O  that  I  might  die  upon  this 
bosom!'"  But  notwithstanding  their  friendship,  Melancthon 
could  not  be  prevailed  on  to  express  himself  in  favor  of  Cal- 
vin's doctrine  of  predestination,  though  the  latter  dedicated 
to  him,  in  flattering  terms,  a  treatise  on  the  subject,  and  by 
letters  sought  to  enlist  his  support.  Calvin  was  bringing  in, 
Melancthon  wrote  to  a  friend,  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  fate.^  When 
Bolsec  was  taken  into  custody  for  vehemently  attacking  this 
doctrine  in  public,  Melancthon  wrote  to  Camerarius  that  they 
had  put  a  man  in  prison  at  Geneva  for  not  agreeing  with  Zeno.^ 

«  Henry,   ii.  352.  ==  Corp.  Ref.,  vii.   392. 

'  Melancthon  said  that  they  had  revived  the  fatalistic  doctrine  of  Laurentius 
Valla.     This,  also,  was  one  of  the  most  offensive  accusations  of  Bolsec. 


188  THE   REFORMATION 

The  relations  of  Calvin  to  the  friends  of  Zwingli  and  to  the 
churches  which  had  been  established  under  his  auspices  were 
for  a  while  unsettled.  Calvin's  Eucharistic  doctrine  differed 
from  that  of  the  Zurich  reformer,  and  he  was  suspected  of  an 
intention  to  introduce  the  Lutheran  theory.  He  succeeded  in 
convincing  them  that  this  suspicion  was  groundless,  and  in 
bringing  about  a  union  through  the  acceptance  of  common 
formularies.  The  fact  that  Zwingli  had  rather  professed  the 
doctrine  of  predestination  as  a  philosophical  theorem,  than 
brought  it  forward  in  popular  teaching,  required  special  exer- 
tions on  the  part  of  Calvin  to  quiet  the  misgivings  of  the  Swiss 
respecting  this  point  also,*  In  this  effort  he  was  likewise  suc- 
cessful. Yet  Berne,  partly  from  the  disfavor  which  it  felt 
towards  minor  peculiarities  of  the  Genevan  cultus,  but  chiefly 
owing  to  the  disappointment  of  political  schemes,  never  treated 
Calvin  with  entire  confidence  and  friendliness. 

Wliile  at  Strasburg  Calvin  was  married  to  the  widow  of 
an  Anabaptist  preacher  whom  he  had  converted.  Several  pre- 
vious attempts  to  negotiate  a  marriage,  in  which  he  had  pro- 
ceeded in  quite  businesslike  spirit,  with  no  outlay  of  sentiment, 
had  from  various  causes  proved  abortive.  The  lady  whom  he 
married  appears  to  have  been  a  person  of  rare  worth,  his  life 
with  her  was  one  of  uninterrupted  harmony;  and  when,  nine 
years  after  their  marriage,  she  died,  his  grief  proved  the  tender- 
ness of  his  attachment.  His  only  child,  a  son,  lived  but  a  short 
time.  It  may  be  remarked  here  that  Calvin  was  far  from  being 
unsusceptible  to  friendship.  With  Farel  and  Viret  he  was 
united  in  the  closest  bonds  of  intimacy.  Though  schooled  to 
submission,  when  he  hears  of  the  death  of  one  after  another  of 
his  friends,  he  gives  expression  to  his  sorrow,  sometimes  in 
pathetic  language.     Beza  loved  him  as  a  father. 

Three  years  after  his  expulsion  he  was  recalled  to  Geneva 
by  the  united  voices  of  the  government  and  people.  The  dis- 
tracted condition  of  the  city  caused  all  eyes  to  turn  to  him  as 
the  only  hope.     Disorder  and  vice  had  been  on  the  increase. 

'  Calvin  criticises  Zwingli 's  treatment  of  this  doctrine,  in  a  letter  to  BuUin- 
ger  (Bonnet,  cclxxxix.)-  The  lukewarmness  of  the  Swiss  churches  in  the  case  of 
Bolsec  was  very  vexatious  to  Calvin,  as  this  and  other  letters  show.  The  cor- 
respondence on  this  case  instructively  exhibits  the  unwillingness  of  the  Zwinglian 
churches  to  press  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  as  Calvin  would  wish.  Their  ex- 
pressions of  sympathy  were  very  qualified  and  constrained.  Bullinger  took  quite 
another  tone  in  reference  to  Servetus,  where  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  assailed- 


CALVIN    RECALLED   TO    GENEVA  189 

Scenes  of  licentiousness  and  violence  were  witnessed  by  day 
and  by  night  in  the  streets.  The  Catholics  were  hoping  to  see 
the  old  religion  restored.  There  was  a  prospect  that  Berne 
would  find  its  profit  in  the  anarchical  situation  of  its  neighbor, 
and  establish  its  control  in  Geneva.  Of  the  four  Syndics  who 
had  been  active  in  the  banishment  of  the  preachers,  one  had 
broken  his  neck  by  a  fall  from  a  window,  another  had  been 
executed  for  murder,  and  the  remaining  two  had  been  banished 
on  suspicion  of  treason.  The  consciences  of  many  were  alarmed 
at  these  occurrences.  Meantime  Cardinal  Sadolet,  Bishop  of 
Carpentras,  addressed  to  the  Senate  a  very  persuasive  letter, 
free  from  all  acrimony,  and  couched  in  a  flattering  style,  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  the  city  back  to  the  fold  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  To  this  document  Calvin  published  a  masterly  reply, 
in  which  he  expressed  his  undying  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the 
Genevan  Church,  and  reviewed  the  Protestant  controversy  with 
singular  force  and  clearness.  "Here  is  a  work,"  said  Luther, 
on  reading  it,  "  that  has  hands  and  feet."  The  personal  remi- 
niscences relating  to  his  conversion,  which  are  interwoven,  make 
it,  as  a  contribution  to  his  biography,  only  second  in  importance 
to  the  Preface  to  the  Psalms.  It  made  a  most  favorable  impres- 
sion at  Geneva,  and  an  edition  of  it  was  published  by  the  author- 
ities. The  city,  torn  by  faction,  with  a  government  too  weak 
to  exercise  effective  control,  turned  to  the  banished  preacher, 
who  had  never  been  without  a  body  of  warm  adherents,  how- 
ever overborne  in  the  excitement  that  attended  his  expulsion. 
Here  was  another  instance  in  which  Providence  seemed  to  inter- 
pose to  baffle  his  cherished  plans,  and  to  use  him  for  a  purpose 
not  his  own.  He  could  not  think  of  going  back  without  a  shud- 
der. The  recollection  of  his  conflicts  there,  and  of  the  troubles 
of  conscience  he  had  suffered,  was  dreadful  to  him.^  But  he 
could  not  long  withstand  the  unanimous  opinion  of  his  friends 
and  the  earnest  importunities  of  the  Genevan  Senate  and  people. 
To  the  solicitations  of  the  deputies  who  followed  him  from  Stras- 
burg  to  Worms,  he  answered  more  with  tears  than  words.  His 
consent  was  at  length  obtained,  and  once  more  he  took  up  his 
abode  in  Geneva,  there  to  live  for  the  remainder  of  his  days. 
Of  the  system  of  ecclesiastical  and  civil  order  which  was 
formed  under  his  influence,  only  the  outlines  can  here  be  given. 

>  See  his  Letters,  Bonnet,  i.  163,  167,  207,  244. 


190  THE   REFORMATION 

His  idea  was  that  the  Church  should  be  distinct  from  the  State, 
but  that  both  should  be  intimately  connected  and  mutually 
cooperative  for  a  common  end  —  the  realization  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  the  lives  of  the  people.  The  Church  was  to  infuse  a 
religious  spirit  into  the  State;  the  State  was  to  uphold  and  fos- 
ter the  interests  of  the  Church.  For  the  instruction  of-  the 
people,  preachers,  whose  qualifications  have  been  put  to  a  thor- 
ough test,  must  be  appointed,  and  respect  for  them  and  atten- 
tion to  their  ministrations  must  be  enforced  by  law.  So  the 
training  of  the  children  in  the  catechism  is  indispensable,  and 
this  must  likewise  be  secured,  if  necessary,  by  the  intervention 
of  the  magistrate.  The  Three  Councils,  or  Senates,  the  Little 
Council,  or  Council  of  Twenty-five,  the  Council  of  Sixty,  and 
the  Council  of  Two  Hundred,  which  had  existed  before,  were 
not  abolished,  but  their  functions  and  relative  prerogatives 
were  materially  changed.  The  drift  of  all  the  political  changes 
was  to  concentrate  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Little  Council, 
and  to  take  it  away  from  the  other  bodies,  and  especially  from 
the  General  Council,  or  popular  assembly  of  the  citizens.  Eccle- 
siastical discipline  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Consistory,  a  body 
composed  of  the  preachers,  who  at  first  were  six  in  number, 
and  of  twice  as  many  laymen;  the  laymen  being  nominated 
by  the  preachers  and  chosen  annually  by  the  Little  Council, 
but  the  General  Council  having  a  veto  upon  their  appointment. 
Calvin  thus  revived,  under  a  peculiar  form,  the  Eldership  in 
the  Church.  It  had  existed,  to  be  sure,  in  some  of  the  Zwinglian 
Churches,  but  not  as  an  effective  organization.  The  preachers 
were  chosen  by  the  ministers  already  in  office ;  they  gave  proof 
of  their  qualifications  by  publicly  preaching  a  sermon,  at  which 
two  members  of  the  Little  Council  were  present.  If  the  min- 
isters approved  of  the  learning  of  the  candidate,  they  presented 
him  to  the  Council,  and  his  election  having  been  sanctioned 
by  that  body,  eight  days  were  given  to  the  people,  in  which  they 
might  bring  forward  objections,  if  they  had  any,  to  his  appoint- 
ment. The  Consistory  had  jurisdiction  in  matrimonial  causes. 
To  this  body  was  committed  a  moral  censorship  that  extended 
over  the  entire  life  of  every  inhabitant.  It  was  a  court  before 
which  any  one  might  be  summoned,  and  which  could  not  be 
treated  with  contumacy  or  disrespect  without  bringing  upon 
the  offender  civil  penalties.     The  power  of  excommunication 


GENEVA   AS   ORGANIZED   BY   CALVIN  191 

was  in  its  hands;  and  excommunication,  if  it  continued  beyond 
a  certain  time,  was  likewise  followed  by  penal  consequences. 
Though  ostensibly  purely  spiritual  in  its  function,  the  Consist- 
ory might  hand  over  to  the  magistrate  transgressors  whose 
offenses  were  deemed  to  be  grave,  or  who  refused  to  submit 
to  correction.  The  city  was  divided  into  districts,  and  in  each 
of  them  a  preacher  and  elder  had  superintendence,  the  ordinance 
being  that  at  least  once  in  a  year  every  family  must  be  visited, 
and  receive  such  admonition,  counsel,  or  comfort  as  its  con- 
dition might  call  for.  Every  sick  person  was  required  to  send 
for  the  minister.  From  this  vigilant,  stringent,  universal  super- 
vision there  was  no  escape.  There  was  no  respect  for  persons; 
the  high  and  the  low,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  were  alike  sub- 
jected to  one  inflexible  rule.  In  the  Consistory,  by  tacit  con- 
sent, Calvin  was  the  unofficial  leader.  The  ministers  —  the 
Venerable  Company,  as  they  were  styled  —  met  together  for 
mutual  fraternal  censure.  Candidates  for  the  ministry  were 
examined  and  ordained  by  them.  They  were  to  be  kept  up  to 
a  high  standard  of  professional  qualifications  and  of  conduct. 
Calvin,  it  may  be  observed,  felt  the  importance  of  an  effective 
delivery :  he  speaks  against  the  reading  of  sermons.^ 

In  the  framing  of  the  civil  laws,  Calvin  had  a  controlling 
influence.  His  legal  education  qualified  him  for  such  a  work, 
and  so  great  was  the  respect  entertained  for  him  that  he  was 
made,  not  by  any  effort  of  his  own,  the  virtual  legislator  of  the 
city.  The  minutest  affairs  engaged  his  attention.  Regulations 
for  the  watching  of  the  gates,  and  for  the  suppression  of  fires,  are 
found  in  his  handwriting.  An  examination  of  the  Genevan 
code  shows  the  strong  influence  of  the  Mosaic  legislation  on 
Calvin's  conception  of  a  well-ordered  community.  Both  the 
special  statutes  and  the  general  theocratic  character  of  the 
Hebrew  commonwealth  were  never  out  of  sight.^  In  all  points 
Calvin  did  not  find  it  practicable  to  conform  to  his  own  theories. 
One  of  his  cardinal  principles  is  that  to  the  congregation  belongs 
the  choice  of  its  religious  teachers ;  but  it  was  provided  at  Ge- 
neva that  the  Collegium,  or  Society  of  Preachers,  should  select 
persons  to  fill  vacancies,  and  to  the  congregation  was  left  only 
a  veto,  which  was  regarded  more  as  a  nominal  than  a  real  pre- 
rogative.    Whatever  may  have  been  the  influence  of  Calvinism 

'  Henry,  ii.  195.  *  Kampschulte,  i.  417. 


192  THE   REFORMATION 

on  society,  Calvin  himself  was  unfavorable  to  democracy.*  It 
is  remarkable  that  almost  at  the  beginning  of  his  earliest  writing, 
the  Commentary  on  Seneca,  there  is  an  expression  of  contempt 
for  the  populace.  His  experiences  at  Geneva,  and  especially 
the  dangers  to  which  his  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  system 
would  be  liable  if  it  were  at  the  disposal  of  a  popular  assem- 
bly, confirmed  his  inclination  to  an  aristocratic  or  oligarchic 
constitution. 

Calvin  had  begun,  after  his  return,  with  moderation,  with 
no  manifestation  of  vindictiveness,  and  without  undertaking 
to  remove  the  other  preachers  who  had  been  appointed  by  the 
opposite  party  in  his  absence.  But  symptoms  of  disaffection 
were  not  long  in  appearing.  The  more  the  new  system  was 
developed  in  its  characteristic  features,  the  more  loud  grew 
the  opposition.  Let  us  glance  at  the  parties  in  this  long-con- 
tinued conflict.  Against  Calvin  were  the  Libertines,  as  they 
were  styled.  They  consisted  of  two  different  classes.  There 
were  the  fanatical  Antinomians,  an  offshoot  from  the  sect  of 
the  Free  Spirit,  who  combined  pantheistic  theology  with  a  lax 
morality,  in  which  the  marriage  relation  was  practically  sub- 
verted and  a  theory  allied  to  the  modern  "free  love  "  was  more 
or  less  openly  avowed  and  practiced.  Their  number  was  suffi- 
cient to  form  a  dangerous  faction,  and  it  appears  to  be  proved 
that  among  them  were  persons  in  affluent  circumstances  and 
possessed  of  much  influence.  United  with  the  "Spirituels," 
as  this  class  of  Libertines  was  termed,  were  the  Patriots,  as  they 
styled  themselves;  those  who  were  for  maintaining  the  demo- 
cratic constitution,  and  jealous  of  the  Frenchmen  and  other 
foreigners  who  had  migrated  in  large  numbers  to  Geneva,  and 
to  whom  the  supporters  of  Calvin  were  for  giving  the  rights  of 
citizens.  The  licentious  free-thinkers,  the  native  Genevese  of 
democratic  proclivities  and  opposed  to  the  granting  of  political 
power  to  the  immigrants,  and  the  multitude  who  chafed  under  the 
new  restraints  put  upon  them,  gradually  combined  against  the 
new  system  and  the  man  who  was  its  principal  author.  On 
the  other  side  were  those  who  preferred  the  order,  independence, 
morality,  and  temporal  prosperity  which  were  the  fruit  of  the 
new  order  of  things,  and,  in  the  existing  circumstances,  were 
inseparable  from  it,  and  especially  all  who  thoroughly  accepted 

•  For  his  opinion  of  "the  people,"  see  Kampschulte,  i.  419. 


GENEVA   AS   ORGANIZED   BY   CALVIN  193 

the  Protestant  system  of  doctrine  as  expounded  by  Calvin.  In 
the  ranks  of  this  party,  which  maintained  its  ascendency,  though 
not  without  perilous  struggles,  were  the  numerous  foreigners, 
who  had  been,  for  the  most  part,  driven  from  their  homes  by 
persecution,  and  had  been  drawn  to  Geneva  by  the  presence  of 
Calvin  and  by  the  religious  system  established  there.  On  a 
single  occasion  not  less  than  three  hundred  of  these  were  natural- 
ized. That  widespread  disaffection  should  exist  was  inevita- 
ble. The  attempt  was  made  to  extend  over  a  city  of  twenty 
thousand  inhabitants,  wonted  to  freedom  and  little  fond  of 
restraint,  the  strict  discipline  of  a  Calvinistic  church.  Not 
only  profaneness  and  drunkenness,  but  recreations  which  had 
been  considered  innocent,  and  divergent  theological  doctrines, 
if  the  effort  was  made  to  disseminate  them,  were  severely  pun- 
ished. In  1568,  under  the  stern  code  which  was  established 
under  the  auspices  of  Calvin,  a  child  was  beheaded  for  striking 
its  father  and  mother.  A  child  sixteen  years  old,  for  attempting 
to  strike  its  mother,  was  sentenced  to  death,  but,  on  account 
of  its  youth,  the  sentence  was  commuted,  and,  having  been  pub- 
licly whipped,  with  a  cord  about  its  neck,  it  was  banished  from 
the  city.  In  1565  a  woman  was  chastised  with  rods  for  singing 
secular  songs  to  the  melody  of  the  Psalms.  In  1579  a  culti- 
vated gentleman  was  imprisoned  for  twenty-four  hours  because 
he  was  found  reading  Poggio,  and,  having  been  compelled  to 
burn  the  book,  he  was  expelled  from  the  city.  Dancing,  and 
the  manufacture  or  use  of  cards,  and  of  nine-pins,  brought  down 
upon  the  delinquent  the  vengeance  of  the  laws.  Even  those 
who  looked  upon  a  dance  were  not  exempt  from  punishment. 
The  prevalence  of  gambling  and  the  indecent  occurrences  at 
balls  furnished  the  ground  for  these  stringent  enactments.  To 
give  the  names  of  Catholic  saints  to  children  was  a  penal  offense. 
In  criminal  processes  torture  was  freely  used,  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  times,  to  elicit  testimony  and  confession;  and 
death  by  fire  was  the  penalty  of  heresy.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
the  prisons  became  filled  and  the  executioner  was  kept  busy.^ 
The  suppression  of  outspoken  religious  dissent  by  force  was 
an  inevitable  result  of  the  principles  on  which  the  Genevan  estate 
was  established.  The  Reformers  can  never  be  fairly  judged 
unless  it  is  kept  in  mind  that  they  were  strangers  to  the  limited 

*  Kampschulte  (i.  426,  428)  gives  statistics. 


194  THE   REFORMATION 

idea  of  the  proper  function  of  the  State,  which  has  come  into 
vogue  in  more  recent  times.  The  ancient  rehgions  were  all  state 
rehgions.  It  was  a  universal  conception  that  a  nation,  Uke  a 
family,  nmst  profess  but  one  faith,  and  practice  the  same  religious 
rites.  The  toleration  of  the  ancients,  which  has  been  lauded 
by  modern  skeptical  writers,  was  only  such  as  polytheism  re- 
quires. The  worship  of  a  nation  was  sacred  within  its  territory 
and  among  its  own  people.  But  to  introduce  foreign  rites,  or 
make  proselytes  of  Roman  citizens,  was  contrary  to  Roman 
law,  and  was  severely  punished.  This  policy  was  conformed  to 
the  general  feeling  of  antiquity.  The  early  Christian  fathers, 
as  Tertullian  and  Cyprian,  speak  against  coercion  in  matters  of 
rehgion.^  After  the  downfall  of  heathenism,  the  successors  of 
Constantine  enforced  conformity  to  the  rehgion  of  the  Empire; 
and  Constantine  himself  did  the  same  within  the  pale  of  the 
Christian  Church,  as  is  seen  in  the  Arian  controversy.  There 
was  persecution  both  on  the  orthodox  and  on  the  Arian  side. 
Severe  laws  were  enacted  against  the  Manichaeans  and  Dona- 
tists.  Augustine,  who  in  his  earlier  writings  had  opposed  the 
use  of  force  for  the  spread  of  truth,  or  the  extirpation  of  error, 
altered  his  views  in  the  Donatist  controversy.  He  would  not 
have  capital  punishment  inflicted,  but  would  confine  the  penalties 
of  heresy  to  imprisonment  or  banishment,  the  confiscation  of 
goods  and  civil  disabilities.  Theodosius  has  the  unenviable  dis- 
tinction of  incorporating  the  theory  of  persecution  in  an  elaborate 
code,  which  threatened  death  to  heretics;  and  in  his  reign  the 
term  Inquisitors  of  the  faith  first  appears.^  The  feeling  of  the 
necessity  of  uniformity  in  religious  belief  and  worship,  and  of 
the  obligation  of  rulers  to  punish  and  to  exterminate  infidelity 
and  heresy  within  their  dominions,  was  universal  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  Innocent  III.  enforced  this  obligation  upon  princes  under 
the  threat  of  excommunication,  and  of  the  forfeiture  of  their 
crowns  and  dominions.  In  1208  he  established  the  Inquisition. 
It  is  true  that  the  Church  kept  up  the  custom  of  asking  the  mag- 
istrate to  spare  the  life  of  the  condemned  heretic ;  but  it  was  an 
empty  formality.  The  Church  inculcated  the  lawfulness  of  the 
severest  punishments  in  such  cases.     Leo  X.,  in  his  Bull  against 

*  The  passages  are  given  in  Limborch,  Historia  Inquisitionis,  i.  ii. 

*  For  the  history  of  persecution,  see  Limborch,  i.  iii. ;  Gibbon,  ch.  xxvii. ;  the 
art.  "Haeresie  "  in  Herzog,  Realencycl.  d.  Theol.  Lecky,  History  of  Rational- 
ism in  Europe,  ch.  iv.   (ii.)- 


RELIGIOUS   PERSECUTION  195 

Luther,  in  1520,  explicitly  condemns  the  proposition:  "Hsere- 
ticos  comburere  est  contra  voluntatem  Spiritus."  No  historical 
student  needs  to  be  told  what  an  incalculable  amount  of  evil 
has  been  wrought  by  Cathohcs  and  by  Protestants,  from  a  mis- 
taken beUef  in  the  perpetual  vahcUty  of  the  Mosaic  civil  legisla- 
tion, and  from  a  confouncUng  of  the  spirit  of  the  old  dispensation 
with  that  of  the  new  —  an  overlooking  of  the  progressive  char- 
acter of  Divine  Revelation.  The  Reformers  held  that  offenses 
against  the  first  table  of  the  law,  not  less  than  the  second,  fall 
under  the  juriscUction  of  the  magistrate.  To  protect  and  foster 
pure  religion,  and  to  put  down  false  religion,  was  that  part  of 
his  office  to  which  he  was  most  sacredly  bound.  Occasional 
utterances,  it  is  true,  which  seem  harbingers  of  a  better  day, 
fell  from  the  lips  of  Protestant  leaders.  ZwingH  was  not  dis- 
posed to  persecution.  Luther  said,  in  reference  to  the  prohi- 
bition of  his  version  of  the  New  Testament:  "Over  the  souls  of 
men  God  can  and  will  have  no  one  rule  save  Himself  alone;" 
and  in  his  book  against  the  Anabaptists,  he  says:  "It  is  not 
right  that  they  should  so  shockingly  nmrder,  burn,  and  cruelly 
slay  such  wretched  people;  they  should  let  every  one  beheve 
what  he  will;  with  the  Scripture  and  God's  Word,  they  should 
check  and  withstand  them ;  with  fire  they  will  accomplish  little. 
The  executioners  on  this  plan  would  be  the  most  learned  doc- 
tors." ^  But  these  noble  words  rather  express  the  dictates  of 
Luther's  humane  impulses  than  definite  principles  by  which  he 
would  consistently  abide.  It  is  often  charged  upon  the  Prot- 
estants themselves  as  a  flagrant  inconsistency  that  whilst  they 
were  persecuted  themselves,  they  were  willing,  and  sometimes 
eager,  to  persecute  others.  So  far  is  Calvin  from  being  impressed 
with  this  incongruity,  that  he  writes :  "Seeing  that  the  defenders 
of  the  Papacy  are  so  bitter  and  bold  in  behalf  of  their  supersti- 
tions, that  in  their  atrocious  fury  they  shed  the  blood  of  the 
innocent,  it  should  shame  Christian  magistrates  that  in  the  pro- 
tection of  certain  truth  they  are  entirely  destitute  of  spirit."  ^ 
The  repressive  measures  of  Catholic  rulers  were  an  example  for 
Protestant  rulers  to  emulate !  There  were  voices  occasionally 
raised  in  favor  of  toleration.  The  case  of  Servetus,  probably, 
tended  more  than  any  single  event  to  produce  wiser  and  more 
charitable  views  on  this  subject.     Free  thinkers,  who  had  no 

*  Walch,  X.  461,  374.  ^  Bonnet,  letter  cccxxv. 


196  THE   REFORMATION 

convictions  for  which  they  would  die  themselves,  —  the  apostles 
of  indifference,  —  were  naturally  early  in  the  field  in  favor  of  the 
rights  of  opinion.  But  reUgious  toleration  could  never  obtain 
a  general  sway  until  the  limitations  of  human  responsibihty, 
and  the  limited  function  to  which  the  State  is  properly  restricted, 
were  better  understood.  A  more  enlightened  charity,  which 
makes  larger  allowance  for  diversities  of  intellectual  view,  is 
doubtless  a  powerful  auxihary  in  effecting  this  salutary  change.^ 

The  conflicts  through  which  Calvin  had  to  pass  in  upholding 
and  firmly  estabhshing  the  Genevan  theocracy  would  have 
broken  down  any  other  than  a  man  of  iron.  Personal  indignities 
were  heaped  upon  him.  The  dogs  in  the  street  were  named 
after  him.  Every  device  was  undertaken  in  order  to  intimidate 
him.  As  he  sat  at  his  study  table  late  at  night,  a  gun  would  be 
discharged  under  his  window.  In  one  night  fifty  shots  were 
fired  before  his  house.  On  one  occasion  he  walked  into  the  midst 
of  an  excited  mob  and  offered  his  breast  to  their  daggers. 

The  case  of  Bolsec,  who  was  arrested  and  banished  for  vio- 
lently attacking  the  preachers  on  the  subject  of  predestination, 
has  already  been  referred  to.  Another  instance,  somewhat  simi- 
lar, was  the  controversy  with  Castellio.  CastelHo  was  a  highly 
cultivated  scholar  whom  Calvin  had  brought  from  Strasburg  to 
take  charge  of  the  Geneva  school.  He  was  desirous  of  becoming 
a  minister,  but  Calvin  objected  on  account  of  his  views  on  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  which  he  thought  should  be  struck  from  the 
canon,  and  his  opposition  to  the  passage  of  the  creed  respecting 
the  descent  of  Christ  into  hell.  The  result  was  that  Castellio 
at  length  made  a  pubUc  attack  upon  the  preachers,  charging 
them  with  intolerance,  and  less  justly,  with  other  grave  faults. 
He  accused  Calvin  of  a  love  of  power.     Whether  the  charge  were 

*  Lecky,  in  common  with  other  writers  at  the  present  day,  makes  persecution 
the  necessary  result  of  undoubting  convictions  on  the  subject  of  religion,  coupled 
with  a  belief  that  moral  obliquity  is  involved  in  holding  opposite  views.  These 
writers  would  make  skepticism  essential  to  the  exercise  of  toleration.  See  Lecky 's 
quotation  from  C.  J.  Fox  (vol.  ii.  p.  20).  But  if  this  be  true,  how  shall  we  account 
for  the  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  persecution,  which  these  very  writers  attribute 
to  the  founders  of  Christianity — to  Christ  and  the  Apostles?  Much  that  is  as- 
cribed to  the  influence  of  "Rationalism"  is  really  due  to  the  increasing  power  of 
Christianity,  and  to  the  better  understanding  of  its  precepts,  and  of  the  limits 
of  the  responsibility  of  society  for  the  opinions  and  character  of  its  members. 
There  are  two  antidotes  to  uncharitableness  and  narrowness.  The  one  is  liberal 
culture ;  the  other  is  that  high  degree  of  religion  —  of  charity  —  which  is  delineated 
by  St.  Paul  in  1  Corinthians  xiii.  Either  of  these  remedies  against  intolerance  is 
consistent  with  a  living,  earnest  faith. 


CALVIN   AND   SERVETUS  197 

true,  Calvin  wrote  to  Farel,  he  was  willing  to  leave  it  to  God  to 
judge.  The  result  was  that  Castellio,  who  had  many  points  of 
excellence,  was  expelled  from  Geneva,  and  afterwards  prosecuted 
in  print  a  heated  controversy  with  Calvin  and  Beza/  But  these 
and  all  other  instances  of  alleged  persecution  are  overshadowed 
by  the  more  notorious  case  of  Servetus.  Michael  Servetus  was 
born  at  Villeneuve,  in  Spain,  in  1509,  and  was  therefore  of  the 
same  age  as  Calvin.  According  to  his  own  statement,  he  was 
attached,  for  a  while,  when  a  youth,  to  the  service  of  Quintana, 
the  chaplain  of  Charles  V.,  and  witnessed  the  stately  ceremo- 
nies at  the  coronation  of  the  Emperor  at  Bologna.  He  was 
sent  by  his  father  to  Toulouse  to  study  law ;  but  his  mind  turned 
to  theological  speculation,  and,  in  connection  with  other  scholars 
of  his  acquaintance,  he  read  the  Scriptures  and  the  Fathers, 
especially  the  writers  of  the  ante-Nicene  period.  He  also  delved 
in  judicial  astrology,  in  which  he  was  a  believer.  Of  an  original, 
inquisitive  mind,  adventurous  and  independent  in  his  thinking, 
he  convinced  himself  of  the  groundlessness  of  the  claims  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church;  but  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the 
Protestant  theology,  especially  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity. 
Going  to  Basel  he  formed  an  acquaintance  with  (Ecolampadius, 
who  expressed  a  strong  dislike  of  his  notions.  Zwingli,  whom 
(Ecolampadius  consulted,  said  that  such  notions  would  subvert 
the  Christian  rehgion,  but  seems  to  have  discountenanced  a 
resort  to  force  for  the  suppression  of  them.^  The  book  of  Ser- 
vetus on  the  "Errors  of  the  Trinity,"  appeared  in  1531.  In  it 
he  defended  a  view  closely  allied  to  the  Sabellian  theory,  and 
an  idea  of  the  incarnation  in  which  the  common  belief  of  two 
natures  in  Christ  had  no  place.  He  endeavored  to  draw  Calvin 
into  a  correspondence,  but  became  angry  at  the  manner  in  which 
Calvin  treated  him  and  his  speculations.  He  wrote  Calvin  a 
number  of  letters  well  stored  with  invectives  against  the  preva- 
lent conceptions  of  Christian  doctrine,  as  well  as  against  Calvin 
personally.  At  length  he  returned  to  Paris,  where  he  had  pre- 
viously studied  at  the  same  time  that  Calvin  was  there,  and  under 

*  When  Calvin  was  excited,  he  was  a  match  for  Luther  in  the  use  of  vituper- 
ative epithets.  The  opprobrious  names  which  he  applies  to  Castellio  the  latter 
collects  in  a  long  list.  The  origin  of  Calvin's  disputes  with  Castellio —  Calvin's 
dissatisfaction  with  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament  —  is  given  in  the  letter 
to  Viret,  Bonnet,  i.  326.  See,  also,  i.  316,  379,  392.  A  fair  account  of  the  con- 
troversy is  given  by  Dyer,   169  seq. 

*  Mosheim,  Geschichte  Servcts,  p.   17. 


198  THE   REFORMATION 

the  assumed  name  of  Villanovus,  derived  from  the  village  where 
he  was  born,  he  prosecuted  his  studies  in  natural  science  and 
medicine,  for  which  he  had  a  remarkable  aptitude.  He  divined 
the  true  method  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  almost  antici- 
pating the  later  discovery  of  Harvey.^  As  a  practitioner  of 
medicine  he  stood  in  high  repute.  After  repeatedly  changing 
his  name  and  residence,  he  finally  took  up  his  abode  in  Vienne, 
in  the  south  of  France,  where  he  was  hospitably  received  by  the 
Archbishop,  and  long  lived  in  the  lucrative  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession. During  all  this  time,  in  the  aggregate  more  than  twenty 
years,  he  conformed  outwardly  to  the  Catholic  Church,  attended 
mass,  and  was  not  suspected  of  heresy.  Here  he  finished  a  book, 
not  less  obnoxious  than  the  first,  entitled  "The  Restoration  of 
Christianity" — Christianismi  Restitutio  —  and  not  being  able 
to  get  it  printed  in  Basel,  he  bribed  the  Archbishop's  own  printer 
and  two  of  his  assistants  to  print  it  for  him  secretly.  He  su- 
perintended the  press,  and  sent  copies  of  the  anonymous  book 
to  various  places  for  sale,  not  forgetting  to  dispatch  one  or  more 
copies  as  presents  to  the  Genevan  theologians.  In  this  work 
his  conception  of  the  person  of  Christ  is  somewhat  modified; 
its  doctrine  makes  a  nearer  approach  to  Pantheistic  theories.^ 
The  two  grand  hindrances  in  the  way  of  the  spread  of  Christian- 
ty  were  declared  to  be  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  that  of 
Infant  Baptism.  The  manuscript  of  the  first  draft  of  the  work 
had  been  sent  to  Calvin  at  an  earlier  day.  A  French  refugee 
residing  at  Geneva,  by  the  name  of  Guillaume  Trie,  in  a  letter 
to  Antoine  Arneys,  a  Roman  Catholic  relative  at  Lyons,  made 
reference  to  Servetus  as  the  author  of  this  pestiferous  book,  and 
as,  nevertheless,  enjoying  immunity  in  a  Church  that  pretended 
to  be  zealous  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy.  Arneys  carried  the 
information  to  the  Archbishop  of  Lyons.  Servetus  was  arrested ; 
and  an  ecclesiastical  court  was  constituted  for  his  trial.  Some 
pages  of  an  annotated  copy  of  the  "Institutes,"  which  he  had 
long  before  sent  to  Calvin,  and  a  parcel  of  his  letters  were  trans- 
mitted from  Geneva  by  Trie,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  the 
charge  which  he  had  indirectly  caused  to  be  made.     Trie  pre- 

'  Henrj',  Leben  Calvins,  'in.  Beil.  59. 

^  "  Es  gibt  kaum  ein  anderes  System,  das  so  sehr  wie  das  Servets  als  ein  pan- 
t/ieistiches  bezeichnet  zu  werden  verdient  in  dem  gewohnlich  mit  diesem  Worte 
verbundenen  Sinn." — Baur,  Die  chrisU.  Lehre  v.  d.  Dreieinigkeit,  etc.,  iii.  i.  2, 
p.  86. 


CALVIN   AND   SERVETUS  199 

vailed  on  Calvin  to  grant  him  this  additional  evidence.  Servetus 
and  the  printers  with  him  had  sworn  that  they  knew  nothing 
of  the  book  which  they  had  published.  Servetus  also  swore 
that  he  was  not  the  person  who  had  written  the  book  on  the 
"Errors  of  the  Trinity."  But  when  the  Genevan  documents 
arrived,  he  saw  that  conviction  was  inevitable,  and  contrived 
to  escape  from  his  jailer.  The  Vienne  court  had  to  content 
itself  with  seizing  his  property  and  burning  his  effigy.  We 
know  Calvin's  disposition  towards  him;  for  in  a  letter  to  Farel 
he  had  once  said  that  if  his  authority  was  of  any  avail,  in 
case  Servetus  were  to  come  to  Geneva,  he  should  not  go  away 
alive.* 

Servetus,  having  escaped  from  Vienne,  after  a  few  months 
actually  appeared  in  Geneva  and  took  lodgings  in  an  inn  near 
one  of  the  gates.  He  had  been  there  for  a  month  without  being 
recognized,  when  Calvin  was  informed  of  his  presence,  and  pro- 
cured his  arrest.  A  scribe  of  Calvin  made  the  accusation.  Ulti- 
mately, Calvin  and  all  the  other  preachers  were  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  prisoner  before  the  Senate  which  was  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  him.  In  the  subsequent  proceedings  he  defended 
his  theological  opinions  with  much  acuteness,  but  with  a  strange 
outpouring  of  violent  denunciation.^  His  propositions  relative 
to  the  participation  of  all  things  in  the  Deity,  and  the  identity 
of  the  world  with  God,  although  he  made  the  embodiment  of 
the  primordial  essence  in  the  world  to  spring  from  a  volition, 
were  couched  in  phraseology  which  made  them  seem  to  his 
accusers  in  the  highest  degree  dangerous  and  repulsive.^  He 
caricatured  the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  by  the  most 
offensive  comparisons.  His  ideas  were  out  of  relation  to  the 
existing  philosophy  and  theology,  and  were  an  anticipation  of 
phases  of  speculation  of  a  much  later  date.  His  physical  theo- 
ries were  interwoven  with  his  theology.  His  maxim,  that  "no 
force  acts  except  by  contact,"  was  connected  with  his  doctrine 

>  February  13,  1546.     Bonnet,  ii.  19. 

-  Dyer,  a  writer  not  at  all  disposed  to  excuse  Calvin,  says  (p.  337)  of  the  in- 
dorsements made  by  Servetus  on  the  list  of  thirty-eight  heretical  propositions 
which  Calvin  had  extracted  from  his  writings:  "The  replies  of  Servetus  to  this 
document  are  very  insolent,  and  seem  almost  like  the  productions  of  a  madman." 
These  replies  may  be  read  in  the  new  edition  of  Calvin's  works,  viii.  519  seq. 

^  "Man  kann  sich  daher  nicht  wundern,  dass  auch  die  Gegner  an  diesem  so 
offen  vor  Augen  liegenden  Character  des  Systems  den  grossten  Anstos  nahmn." 
—  Baur,  Ibid.,  p.  103. 


200  THE   REFORMATION 

of  the  substantial  communication  of  the  Deity  to  all  things; 
and  he  told  Calvin  contemptuously  that  if  he  only  understood 
natural  science,  he  could  comprehend  this  subject.  While  he 
was  undergoing  his  trial,  a  messenger  arrived  from  the  tribunal 
at  Vienne  to  demand  their  escaped  prisoner.  There  was  no 
safety  for  him  with  Papist  or  Protestant !  He  chose  to  remain 
and  take  his  chance  where  he  was.  It  is  not  improbable  that 
his  boldness  and  vehemence  were  inspired  by  suggestions  from 
the  Libertine  party,  and  that  he  felt  that  they  stood  at  his  back.^ 
Calvin  was  far  from  being  omnipotent  in  Geneva  at  this  time. 
He  was,  in  fact,  in  the  very  crisis  of  his  conflict  with  his  adver- 
saries. It  was  on  the  27th  of  August,  1553,  that  he  denounced 
Servetus  from  the  pulpit;  he  had  been  arrested  on  the  13th  of 
the  same  month.  On  the  3d  of  September,  Calvin  refused  the 
Lord's  Supper  to  the  younger  Berthelier,  a  leader  of  the  Liber- 
tines. So  strong  was  this  party,  that  had  the  cause  of  Servetus 
been  carried,  as  was  attempted,  to  the  Council  of  Two  Hundred, 
Servetus  would  have  escaped.  He  was  extremely  bold,  and 
demanded  that  Calvin  should  be  banished  for  bringing  a  mali- 
cious accusation,  and  that  his  property  should  be  handed  over 
to  him.  Contrary  to  his  expectation,  he  was  condemned.  He 
called  Calvin  to  his  prison,  and  asked  pardon  for  his  personal 
treatment  of  him ;  but  all  attempts  to  extort  from  him  a  retrac- 
tion of  his  doctrines,  whether  made  by  Calvin  or  by  Farel  before 
the  execution  of  the  sentence,  were  ineffectual.  He  adhered 
to  his  opinions  with  heroic  constancy,  and  was  burned  at  the 
stake  on  the  morning  of  the  27th  of  October,  1553. 

On  the  one  hand,  it  is  not  true  that  Calvin  arranged  that  the 
mode  of  his  death  should  be  needlessly  painful.  He  made  the 
attempt  to  have  it  mitigated;  probably  that  the  sword  might 
be  used  instead  of  the  fagot.  And  notwithstanding  the  previous 
threat,  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  it  is  likely  that  he 
expected,  and  he  had  reason  to  expect,  that  Servetus  would 
recant.  On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  yielded 
to  the  solicitation  of  Trie,  and  supplied  the  documentary  evi- 
dence which  went  from  Geneva  to  the  court  at  Vienne.  He 
caused  the  arrest  of  Servetus  at  Geneva,  and  it  is  a  violation  of 

*  Guizot  expresses  the  decided  opinion  that  Servetus  went  to  Geneva  reljnng 
on  the  Libertines,  and  that  they  expected  support  from  him.  St.  Louis  and  Cal- 
vin, p.  313.  But  there  is  no  good  evidence  of  any  previous  understanding  between 
him  and  them. 


CALVIN   AND   SERVETUS  201 

historical  truth  to  say  that  he  did  not  desire  his  execution.^  The 
infliction  of  capital  punishment  on  one  whom  he  considered  a 
blasphemer,  as  well  as  an  assailant  of  the  fundamental  truths 
of  Christianity,  was  in  his  judgment  right.  In  the  defense  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  against  Servetus,  which  Calvin  pub- 
lished in  1554,  he  enters  into  a  formal  argument  in  favor  of  the 
capital  punishment  of  contumacious  heretics  by  the  civil  author- 
ity. He  thinks  that  if  Roman  Catholic  rulers  slay  the  innocent, 
this  is  no  reason  why  better  and  more  enlightened  magistrates 
should  spare  the  guilty.  The  whole  discussion  proves  that  the 
arguments  for  toleration,  both  from  Scripture  and  reason,  were 
not  unknown  to  him,  for  he  tries  to  answer  them.  He  makes 
his  appeal,  in  great  part,  to  the  Old  Testament.  Guizot  thus 
pronounces  upon  the  case  of  Servetus  and  Calvin :  "It  was  their 
tragical  destiny  to  enter  into  mortal  combat  as  the  champions 
of  two  great  causes.  It  is  my  profound  conviction  that  Calvin's 
cause  was  the  good  one;  that  it  was  the  cause  of  morality,  of 
social  order,  of  civilization.  Servetus  was  the  representative  of 
a  system  false  in  itself,  superficial  under  the  pretense  of  science, 
and  destructive  alike  of  social  dignity  in  the  individual  and  of 
moral  order  in  human  society.  In  their  disastrous  encounter, 
Calvin  was  conscientiously  faithful  to  what  he  believed  to  be 
truth  and  duty;  but  he  was  hard,  much  more  influenced  by 
violent  animosity  than  he  imagined,  and  devoid  alike  of  sym- 
pathy and  generosity.  Servetus  was  sincere  and  resolute  in  his 
conviction,  but  he  was  a  frivolous,  presumptuous,  vain,  and 
envious  man,  capable,  in  time  of  need,  of  resorting  to  artifice 
and  untruth.  Servetus  obtained  the  honor  of  being  one  of  the 
few  martyrs  to  intellectual  liberty;  whilst  Calvin,  who  was 
imdoubtedly  one  of  those  who  did  most  toward  the  establish- 
ment of  religious  liberty,  had  the  misfortune  to  ignore  his  adver- 
sary's right  to  liberty  of  belief."  ^  The  forbearance  of  Calvin 
toward  Lselius  Socinus  has  been  sometimes  considered  a  proof 
that  he  was  actuated  by  personal  vindictiveness  in  relation  to 
Servetus.     But  Calvin,  widely  as  he  might  differ  from  Socinus, 

•  We  have  already  cited  his  letter  to  Farel,  of  February  13,  1546.  After  the 
arrest  of  Servetus,  Calvin  wrote  to  Farel  (August  20,  1553),  saying:  "I  hope 
(spero)  the  sentence  will  at  least  be  capital ;  but  desire  the  atrocity  of  the  punish- 
ment to  be  abated. "  He  wished  him  to  be  put  to  death,  but  not  by  fire.  Calvin 
published  an  elaborate  work  in  defense  of  the  proceeding.  Henry  has  mistrans- 
lated the  above  passage :  see  Dyer,  Life  of  Calvin,  p.  339. 

*  St.  Louis  and  Calvin,  c.  xix.  p.  326. 


202  THE   REFORMATION 

recognized  in  him  a  sobriety,  a  moral  respectability,  which  he 
wholly  missed  in  the  restless,  visionary,  passionate  physician  of 
Villeneuve.  It  was  the  diversity  of  character  in  the  two  men, 
and  the  different  methods  which  they  adopted  to  spread  their 
doctrines,  much  more  than  any  resentment  which  Calvin  might 
feel  in  consequence  of  the  attacks  of  Servetus  —  whom  he  looked 
down,  upon  as  a  wild,  mischievous  dreamer  —  that  made  him 
so  courteous  and  lenient  to  Socinus. 

The  execution  of  Servetus,  with  a  few  notable  exceptions, 
was  approved  by  the  Christian  world.  Bullinger,  the  friend  and 
successor  of  Zwingli,  justified  it.  Even  Melancthon  gave  it  his 
sanction.  The  rise  of  infidel  and  fanatical  sects  in  the  path  of 
the  Reformation,  as  an  incidental  consequence  of  the  movement, 
and  the  disposition  of  opponents  to  identify  it  with  these  mani- 
festations, made  the  Protestants  the  more  solicitous  to  demon- 
strate their  hostility  to  them,  and  their  fidelity  to  the  principal 
articles  of  the  Christian  faith.  In  rejecting  infant  baptism,  and 
in  the  terms  of  his  proposition  respecting  the  identity  of  the 
world  with  God,  Servetus  was  at  one  with  the  Libertine  free- 
thinkers. "He  held  with  the  Anabaptists,"  said  the  Genevan 
Senate,  and  must  suffer ;  ^  although  Servetus  asserted  that  he 
had  always  condemned  the  opposition  made  by  the  Anabaptists 
to  the  civil  magistrate. 

The  conflict  with  the  Libertine  faction  did  not  end  with  the 
condemnation  of  Servetus.  The  courage  and  determination  of 
a  Hildebrand  were  required  to  stem  the  opposition  which  Calvin 
had  to  meet.  An  attempt  to  overthrow  the  power  of  the  Con- 
sistory, by  interposing  the  authority  of  the  Senate,  was  only 
baffled  by  his  resolute  refusal  to  admit  to  the  sacrament  persons 
judged  to  be  unworthy.  Finally,  the  efforts  of  the  Libertine 
party  culminated  in  1555,  in  an  armed  conspiracy  under  the 
lead  of  Perrin,  who  had  held  the  highest  offices  in  the  city ;  and 
the  complete  overthrow  of  this  insurrection  was  the  deathblow 

*  Upon  the  life  and  opinions  of  Servetus,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  trial 
and  death,  see  Mosheim,  Ketzergeschichte,  ii.  (1748),  and  Neue  Nachrichten  von 
dem  beruhmten  span.  Arzte,  M.  Seri^eto  (1750)  ;  Trechsel,  Die  Anti-irinitarier,  and 
art.  "Servet"  in  Herzog's  Realend. ;  Dyer,  Life  of  Calvin,  chs.  ix.  and  x. ;  Henry, 
Lehen  Calvins,  iii.  i. ;  Baur,  Die  christl.  Lehre  von  d.  Dreieinigkeit,  etc.,  t.  iii.  p.  54 
seq. ;  Dorner,  EntwicMungsch.  d.  Lehre  von  d.  Person  Christi,  ii.  649  seq. ;  R. 
Willis,  Servetus  and  Calvin  (1877) ;  SchafF,  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Church,  \ni.  681 
seq.  The  letters  of  Servetus  to  Calvin,  together  with  the  Minutes  of  his  Trial  at 
Geneva,  are  given  in  the  new  edition  of  the  Works  of  Calvin  (by  Baum,  Cunitz, 
and  Reuss),  vol.  viii.  (1870). 


CONFLICTS   OF   CALVIN  203 

of  the  party.  In  the  Preface  to  the  Psalms,  Calvin  makes  a 
pathetic  reference  to  the  stormy  scenes  which  he  —  by  nature 
"un warlike  and  timorous" — had  been  compelled  to  pass 
through ;  to  the  sorrow  which  he  felt  in  the  destruction  of  those 
whom  he  would  have  preferred  to  save;  and  to  the  multiplied 
calumnies  that  his  enemies  persistently  heaped  upon  him/  "To 
my  power,"  he  says,  ''which  they  envy  —  0  that  they  were 
the  successors!"  "If  I  cannot  persuade  them  while  I  am  alive 
that  I  am  not  avaricious,  my  death,  at  least,  will  convince  them 
of  it."  His  entire  property  after  his  death  amounted  to  less 
than  two  hundred  dollars  ! 

At  the  same  time  that  he  was  waging  this  domestic  contest, 
he  was  exerting  a  vast  influence  as  a  religious  teacher  within 
the  city  and  all  over  Europe.  Besides  preaching  every  day  of 
each  alternate  week,  he  gave  weekly  three  theological  lectures. 
His  memory  was  so  tenacious  that  if  he  had  once  seen  a  person, 
he  recognized  him  immediately  years  afterwards,  and  if  inter- 
rupted while  dictating,  he  could  resume  his  task,  after  an  interval 
of  hours,  at  the  point  where  he  had  left  it,  without  aid  from  his 
amanuensis.  Hence,  he  was  able  to  discourse,  even  upon  the 
prophets,  where  numerous  historical  references  were  involved, 
without  the  aid  of  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  with  nothing  before  him 
but  the  text.  Being  troubled  with  asthma,  he  spoke  slowly,  so 
that  his  lectures,  as  well  as  many  of  his  sermons,  were  taken 
down,  word  for  word,  as  they  were  delivered.  Hundreds  of 
auditors  from  the  various  countries  of  Europe  flocked  to  Geneva 
to  listen  to  his  instructions.  Protestant  exiles  in  great  numbers, 
many  of  whom  were  men  of  influence,  of  whom  Knox  was  one, 
found  a  refuge  there,  and  went  back  to  their  homes  bearing  the 
impress  which  he  had  stamped  upon  them.  Under  Calvin's 
influence,  Geneva  became  to  the  Romanic  what  Wittenberg 
was  to  the  Lutheran  nations.  The  school  of  which  Castellio 
was  the  head  did  not  flourish  after  he  left  it;  but,  in  1558,  a 
gymnasium   was   established,   and   in   the   following   year   the 

'  Kampschulte  states  that  when  the  pestilence  raged  at  Geneva  in  1543,  Calvin 
declined,  from  fear,  to  go  to  the  pest-house  to  minister  to  the  sick  and  dying. 
{Johann  Calvin,  i.  484.)  But  Beza,  than  whom  there  is  no  better  witness,  states 
that  Calvin  offered  himself  for  this  service,  but  the  Senate  would  not  permit  him 
to  undertake  it;  Vita  Calvini,  ix.  For  other  contemporary  proof,  see  Bonnet, 
Letters  of  Calvin,  i.  334,  n.  3.  See  also  Henry,  ii.  43.  But  Kampschulte  himself 
quotes  the  act  of  the  Council,  withholding  Calvin  from  this  service  which  involved 
almost  certain  death  (p.  486,  n.  2). 


204  THE   REFORMATION 

Academy  of  Theology  was  founded,  and  Beza  placed  over  it. 
The  writings  of  Calvin  were  circulated  in  every  country  of  Eu- 
rope. By  his  correspondence,  moreover,  his  powerful  influence 
was  brought  to  bear  directly  upon  the  leaders  of  the  reformatory 
movement  everywhere.  In  England  and  France,  in  Scotland 
and  Poland  and  Italy,  on  the  roll  of  his  correspondents  were 
princes  and  nobles,  as  well  as  theologians.  His  counsels  were 
called  for  and  prized  in  matters  of  critical  importance.  He 
writes  to  Edward  VI.  and  Elizabeth,  to  Somerset  and  Cranmer. 
But  especially  in  the  affairs  of  the  Reformation  in  France  his 
agency  was  predominant.  Geneva  was  the  hearthstone  of 
French  Protestantism.  It  was  there  that  its  preachers  were 
trained.  The  principal  men  in  the  Huguenot  party  looked  up 
to  Calvin  as  to  an  oracle.  But  he  was  strongly  averse  to  a  resort 
to  arms  and  to  a  dependence  on  political  agencies  and  expedients. 
His  instincts  were,  in  this  respect,  in  full  accord  with  those  of 
Luther.  It  would  be  impossible  to  describe  his  connection  with 
the  Huguenot  struggle,  without  narrating  the  entire  history  of 
the  French  Reformation. 

In  the  concluding  years  of  Calvin's  life,  he  had  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  Geneva  delivered  from  faction,  and  the  insti- 
tutions of  education,  which  he  had  planted,  in  a  flourishing 
condition.  The  grievous  maladies  that  afflicted  him  did  not  move 
him  to  diminish  the  prodigious  labors  which,  to  other  men  in 
like  circumstances,  would  have  been  unendurable.  It  had  been 
his  habit  when  the  day  had  been  consumed  in  giving  sermons 
and  lectures;  in  the  sessions  of  the  Consistory  over  which  he 
presided;  in  attending  upon  the  Senate,  at  their  request,  to 
take  part  in  their  deliberations;  in  receiving  and  answering 
letters  that  poured  in  upon  him  from  every  quarter;  in  confer- 
ring with  the  numerous  visitors  who  sought  his  advice  or  came 
to  him  from  different  countries  —  it  had  been  his  habit,  when 
night  came,  to  devote  himself,  with  a  sense  of  relief,  to  the  studies 
which  were  ever  most  accordant  with  his  taste,  and  to  the  com- 
position of  his  books.  For  a  long  time,  in  the  closing  period  of 
his  life,  he  took  but  one  meal  in  a  day,  and  this  was  often  omitted. 
He  studied  for  hours  in  the  morning,  preached  and  then  lectured, 
before  taking  a  morsel  of  food.  Too  weak  to  sit  up,  he  dictated 
to  an  amanuensis  from  his  bed,  or  transacted  business  with  those 
who  came  to  consult  him.    When  his  body  was  utterly  feeble, 


CALVIN'S   LAST   DAYS  205 

when  he  was  reduced  to  a  shadow,  his  mind  lost  none  of  its  clear- 
ness or  energy.  No  complaint  in  reference  to  his  physical  suf- 
ferings was  heard  from  him.  His  lofty  and  intrepid  spirit 
triumphed  over  all  physical  infirmity.  From  his  sick  bed  he 
regulated  the  affairs  of  the  French  Reformation.  When  he 
could  no  longer  stand  upon  his  feet,  he  was  carried  to  church 
to  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  to  a  session  of  the  Senate. 
Seeing  that  his  end  was  near,  he  desired  to  meet  this  body  for 
the  last  time.  A  celebrated  artist  has  depicted  the  interview 
upon  the  canvas.  The  councilors  gathered  about  his  bed,  and 
he  addressed  them.  He  thanked  them  for  the  tokens  of  honor 
which  they  had  granted  to  him,  and  craved  their  forgiveness  for 
outbreakings  of  anger  which  they  had  treated  with  so  much  for- 
bearance. He  could  say  with  truth,  that  whatever  might  be 
his  faults,  he  had  served  their  republic  with  his  whole  soul.  He 
had  taught,  he  said,  with  no  feeling  of  uncertainty  respecting 
his  doctrine,  but  sincerely  and  honestly,  according  to  the  Word 
of  God.  "Were  it  not  so,"  he  added,  "I  well  know  that  the 
wrath  of  God  would  impend  over  my  head."  Courteously  and 
solemnly,  in  a  paternal  tone,  he  warned  them  of  the  need  of 
humility  and  of  faithful  vigilance  to  keep  off  the  dangers  that 
might  threaten  the  State.  "I  know,"  he  said,  "the  mind  and 
walk  of  each  one  of  you,  and  know  that  ye  have  all  need  of  ad- 
monition. Much  is  wanting  even  to  the  best  of  you."  He  con- 
cluded with  a  fervent  prayer,  and  took  each  one  by  the  hand,  as 
with  tears  they  parted  from  him.  Two  days  afterwards,  he 
met  the  clergy  of  the  city  and  of  the  neighborhood.  He  sat  up 
in  his  bed  and,  having  offered  prayer,  spoke  to  them.  He  began 
by  saying  that  it  might  be  thought  that  he  was  not  in  so  bad  a 
case  as  he  supposed.  "But  I  assure  you,"  he  added,  "in  all 
my  former  illnesses  and  sufferings,  I  have  never  felt  myself  so 
weak  and  sinking  as  now.  When  they  lay  me  down  upon  the 
bed,  my  senses  fail  and  I  become  faint."  He  referred  to  his 
past  career  in  Geneva.  When  he  came  to  this  Church  there 
was  preaching,  and  that  was  all.  They  hunted  up  the  images 
and  burnt  them,  but  of  a  Reformation  there  was  nothing;  all 
was  insubordination  and  disorder.  He  had  been  obliged  to  go 
through  tremendous  conflicts.  Sometimes  in  the  night,  he  said, 
to  terrify  him,  fifty  or  sixty  shots  had  been  fired  before  his  door. 
"Think,"  he  said,  "what  an  impression  that  must  make  upon  a 


206  THE    REFORMATION 

poor  scholar,  shy  and  timid  as  I  then  was,  and  at  the  bottom 
have  always  been."  This  last  statement  respecting  his  natural 
disposition,  he  repeated  two  or  three  times  with  emphasis.  He 
adverted  to  his  banishment  and  stay  in  Strasburg,  but  on  his 
return  the  difficulties  were  not  diminished.  They  had  set  their 
dogs  on  him,  with  the  cry:  "Seize  him!  seize  him!"  and  his 
clothes  and  his  flesh  had  been  torn  by  them.  "Although  I  am 
nothing,"  he  proceeded  to  say,  "I  know  that  I  have  prevented 
more  than  three  hundred  riots  which  would  have  desolated 
Geneva."  He  asked  their  pardon  for  his  many  faults;  in  par- 
ticular for  his  quickness,  vehemence,  and  readiness  to  be  angry. 
In  regard  to  his  teaching  and  his  writings,  he  could  say  that 
God  had  given  him  the  grace  to  go  to  work  earnestly  and  sys- 
tematically, so  that  he  had  not  knowingly  perverted  or  errone- 
ously interpreted  a  single  passage  of  the  Scriptures.  He  had 
written  for  no  personal  end,  but  only  to  promote  the  honor  of 
God.  He  gave  them  various  exhortations  relating  to  the  obliga- 
tions of  their  office ;  then  took  them  each  by  the  hand,  and  "  we 
parted  from  him,"  says  Beza,  "with  our  eyes  bathed  in  tears, 
and  our  hearts  full  of  unspeakable  grief."  He  died  on  the  27th 
of  May,  1564.  His  piercing  eye  retained  its  brilhancy  to  the 
last.  Apart  from  this,  his  face  had  long  worn  the  look  of  death, 
and  its  appearance,  as  we  are  informed  by  Beza,  was  not  per- 
ceptibly changed  after  the  spirit  had  left  the  body.  His  last 
days  were  of  a  piece  with  his  hfe.  His  whole  course  has  been 
compared  by  Vinet  to  the  growth  of  one  rind  of  a  tree  from 
another,  or  to  a  chain  of  logical  sequences.  He  was  endued 
with  a  marvelous  power  of  understanding,  although  the  imagina- 
tion and  sentiments  were  less  roundly  developed.  His  systematic 
spirit  fitted  him  to  be  the  founder  of  an  enduring  school  of 
thought.  In  this  characteristic  he  may  be  compared  with 
Aquinas.  He  has  been  appropriately  styled  the  Aristotle  of 
the  Reformation.  He  was  a  perfectly  honest  man.  He  sub- 
jected his  will  to  the  eternal  rule  of  right,  as  far  as  he  could  dis- 
cover it.  His  motives  were  pure.  He  felt  that  God  was  near 
him,  and  sacrificed  everything  to  obey  the  direction  of  Provi- 
dence. The  fear  of  God  ruled  in  his  soul;  not  a  slavish  fear, 
but  a  principle  such  as  animated  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Cove- 
nant. The  combination  of  his  qualities  was  such  that  he  could 
not  fail  to  attract  profound  admiration  and  reverence  from  one 


CALVINISM   AND   CIVIL   LIBERTY  207 

class  of  minds,  and  excite  intense  antipathy  in  another.  There 
is  no  one  of  the  Reformers  who  is  spoken  of,  at  this  late  day, 
with  so  much  personal  feeling,  either  of  regard  or  aversion.  But 
whoever  studies  his  life  and  writings,  especially  the  few  passages 
in  which  he  lets  us  into  his  confidence  and  appears  to  invite  our 
sympathy,  will  acquire  a  growing  sense  of  his  intellectual  and 
moral  greatness,  and  a  tender  consideration  for  his  errors. 

In  Calvinism,  considered  as  a  theological  system,  and  con- 
trasted with  other  types  of  Protestant  theology,  there  is  one 
characteristic,  pervading  principle.  It  is  that  of  the  sovereignty 
of  God;  not  only  his  unUmited  control,  within  the  sphere  of 
mind,  as  well  as  of  matter,  but  the  determination  of  His  will, 
as  the  ultimate  cause  of  the  salvation  of  some,  and  of  the  aban- 
donment of  others  to  perdition. 

In  the  constitution  which  Calvin  created  at  Geneva,  as  it  is 
seen  in  the  light  which  the  lapse  of  three  centuries  casts  upon 
it,  were  two  capital  errors.  First,  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Church, 
its  discipline  over  its  members,  was  carried  into  the  details  of 
conduct,  extended  over  personal  and  domestic  life,  to  such  a 
degree  as  unwarrantably  to  curtail  individual  liberty.  Sec- 
ondly, the  power  of  coercion  that  was  given  to  the  civil  author- 
it}^  subverted  freedom  in  religious  opinion  and  worship. 

How  is  it,  then,  that  Calvinism  is  acknowledged,  even  by 
its  foes,  to  have  promoted  powerfully  the  cause  of  civil  liberty  ? 
One  reason  lies  in  the  boundary  Hne  which  it  drew  between 
Church  and  State.  Calvinism  would  not  surrender  the  peculiar 
functions  of  the  Church  to  the  civil  authority.^  Whether  the 
Church,  or  the  Government,  should  regulate  the  administration 
of  the  Sacrament,  and  admit  or  reject  the  communicants,  was  the 
question  which  Calvin  fought  out  with  the  authorities  at  Geneva. 
In  this  feature,  Calvinism  differed  from  the  relation  of  the  civil 
rulers  to  the  Church,  as  established  under  the  auspices  of  Zwingli, 
as  well  as  of  Luther,  and  from  the  Anglican  system  which  origi- 
nated under  Henry  VIII.  In  its  theory  of  the  respective  powers 
of  the  Church  and  of  the  Magistrate,  Calvinism  approximated 
to  the  traditional  view  of  the  Catholic  Church.  In  France,  in 
Holland,  in  Scotland,  in  England,  wherever  Calvinism  was 
planted,  it  had  no  scruples  about  resisting  the  tyranny  of  civil 

'  Calvin  condemns  Henry  VIII.  for  styling  himself  the  head  of  the  Anglican 
Church.     Kampschulte,  i.  271. 


208  THE  REFORMATION 

rulers.  This  principle,  in  the  long  run,  would  inevitably  con- 
duce to  the  progress  of  civil  freedom.  It  is  certain  that  the 
distinction  between  Church  and  State,  which  was  recognized 
from  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  notwithstanding  the  long 
ages  of  intolerance  and  persecution  that  were  to  follow,  was  the 
first  step,  the  necessary  condition,  in  the  development  of  religious 
liberty.  First,  it  must  be  settled  that  the  State  shall  not  stretch 
its  power  over  the  Church,  within  its  proper  sphere;  next,  that 
that  State  shall  not  lend  its  power  to  the  Church,  as  an  execu- 
tioner of  ecclesiastical  laws. 

A  second  reason  why  Calvinism  has  been  favorable  to  civil 
liberty  is  found  in  the  republican  character  of  its  church  organi- 
zation. Laymen  shared  power  with  ministers.  The  people,  the 
body  of  the  congregation,  took  an  active  and  responsible  part 
in  the  choice  of  the  clergy,  and  of  all  other  officers.  At  Geneva, 
the  alliance  of  the  Church  with  the  civil  authority,  and  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  Calvin  was  placed,  reduced  to  a  consider- 
able extent  the  real  power  of  the  people  in  church  affairs.  Calvin 
did  not  realize  his  own  theory.  But  elsewhere,  especially  in 
countries  where  Calvinism  had  to  encounter  the  hostility  of  the 
State,  the  democratic  tendencies  of  the  system  had  full  room  for 
development.  Men  who  were  accustomed  to  rule  themselves  in 
the  Church  would  claim  the  same  privilege  in  the  commonwealth. 

Another  source  of  the  influence  of  Calvinism,  in  advancing 
the  cause  of  civil  liberty,  has  been  derived  from  its  theology. 
The  sense  of  the  exaltation  of  the  Almighty  Ruler,  and  of  his 
intimate  connection  with  the  minutest  incidents  and  obligations 
of  human  life,  which  is  fostered  by  this  theology,  dwarfs  all 
earthly  potentates.  An  intense  spirituaHty,  a  consciousness  that 
this  Ufe  is  but  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  human  existence, 
dissipates  the  feeling  of  personal  homage  for  men,  however  high 
their  station,  and  dulls  the  luster  of  all  earthly  grandeur.  Calvin- 
ism and  Romanism  are  the  antipodes  of  each  other.  Yet,  it  is 
curious  to  observe  that  the  effect  of  these  opposite  systems  upon 
the  attitude  of  men  towards  the  civil  authority  has  often  been 
not  dissimilar.  But  the  Calvinist,  unlike  the  Romanist,  dis- 
penses with  a  human  priesthood,  which  has  not  only  often  proved 
a  powerful  direct  auxiliary  to  temporal  rulers,  but  has  educated 
the  sentiments  to  a  habit  of  subjection,  which  renders  submis- 
sion to  such  rulers  more  facile  and  less  easy  to  shake  off. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   REFORMATION   IN   FRANCE 

The  long  contest  for  Galilean  rights  had  lowered  the  prestige 
of  the  popes  in  France,  but  it  had  not  weakened  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  was  older  than  the  monarchy  itself,  and,  in  the 
feehng  of  the  people,  was  indissolubly  associated  with  it/  The 
College  of  the  Sorbonne,  or  the  Theological  Faculty  at  Paris, 
and  the  ParHament,  which  had  together  maintained  Galilean 
Uberty,  in  a  spirit  of  independence  of  the  Papacy,  were  united 
in  stern  hostihty  to  all  doctrinal  innovations.  The  Concordat 
concluded  between  Francis  I.  and  Leo  X.,  after  the  battle  of 
Marignano,  gave  to  the  King  the  right  of  presentation  to  vacant 
benefices;  to  the  Pope,  the  first-fruits.  It  excited  profound 
discontent,  and  was  only  registered  by  Parliament  after  pro- 
longed resistance  and  under  a  protest.  It  abolished  the  Prag- 
matic Sanction  of  1438,  which  had  been  deemed  the  charter  of 
Galilean  independence.  It  put  into  the  hands  of  Francis  I.,  and 
a  great  many  laymen  besides,  an  endless  amount  of  patronage 
of  one  sort  and  another,  but  it  weakened  the  Catholic  Church, 
only  as  it  led  to  the  introduction  of  incompetent,  unworthy 
persons,  favorites  of  the  court,  into  ecclesiastical  offices,  and 
thus  increased  the  necessity  for  reform.^  In  Southern  France 
a  remnant  of  the  Waldenses  had  survived,  and  the  recollection 
of  the  Catharists  was  still  preserved  in  popular  songs  and  legends. 
But  the  first  movements  towards  reform  emanated  from  the 
Humanist  culture. 

A  hterary  and  scientific  spirit  was  awakened  in  France 
through  the  lively  intercourse  with  Italy,  which  subsisted  under 
Louis  XII.  and  Francis  I.  By  Francis  especially,  Itahan 
scholars  and  artists  were  induced  in  large  numbers  to  take  up 

*  Ranke,  Franzosische  Geschichte  vornehmlich  im  16.  u.  17.  Jahrhundert,  i.  110. 
^  On  the  corruption  consequent  upon  the  Concordat,  see  Ranke,  Franzosische 
Geschichte,  i.  131 ;    Cambridge  Modern  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  674. 

209 


210  THE    REFORMATION 

their  abode  in  France,  Frenchmen  Hkewise  visited  Italy  and 
brought  home  the  classical  culture  which  they  acquired  there. 
Among  the  scholars  who  cultivated  Greek  was  Budseus,  the 
foremost  of  them,  whom  Erasmus  styled  the  "wonder  of  France." 
After  the  "Peace  of  the  Dames"  was  concluded  at  Cambray,  in 
1529,  when  Francis  surrendered  Italy  to  Charles  V.,  a  throng 
of  patriotic  Italians  who  feared  or  hated  the  Spanish  rule, 
streamed  over  the  Alps  and  gave  a  new  impulse  to  Hterature 
and  art.  Poets,  artists,  and  scholars  found  in  the  king  a  liberal 
and  enthusiastic  patron.  The  new  studies,  especially  Hebrew  and 
Greek,  were  opposed  by  all  the  might  of  the  Sorbonne,  the 
leader  of  which  was  the  Syndic,  Beda.  He  and  his  associates 
were  on  the  watch  for  heresy,  and  every  author  who  was  sus- 
pected of  overstepping  the  bounds  of  orthodoxy,  was  immedi- 
ately accused  and  subjected  to  persecution.  Thus  two  parties 
were  formed,  the  one  favorable  to  the  new  learning,  and  the 
other  inimical  to  it  and  rigidly  wedded  to  the  traditional  the- 
ology.' 

The  Father  of  the  French  Reformation,  or  the  one  more 
entitled  to  this  distinction  than  any  other,  is  Jacques  Lefevre, 
who  was  born  at  Etaples,  a  little  village  of  Picardy,  about  the 
year  1455,  prosecuted  his  studies  at  the  University  of  Paris,  and 
having  become  a  master  of  arts  and  a  priest,  spent  some  time  in 
Italy.  After  his  return  he  taught  mathematics  and  philosophy 
at  Paris,  was  active  in  publishing  and  commenting  on  the  works 
of  Aristotle,  which  he  had  studied  in  the  original  in  Italy,  as  well 
as  in  printing  books  of  ancient  mathematicians,  writings  of  the 
Fathers,  and  mystical  productions  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Lefevre 
was  honored  among  the  Humanists  as  the  restorer  of  philosophy 
and  science  in  the  University.  Deeply  imbued  with  a  rehgious 
spirit,  in  1509  he  put  forth  a  commentary  on  the  Psalms,  and 
in  1512  a  commentary  on  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  As  early  as 
about  1512,  he  said  to  his  pupil  Farel :  "God  will  renovate  the 
world,  and  you  will  be  a  witness  of  it;"  and  in  the  last-named 
work,  he  says  that  the  signs  of  the  times  betoken  that  a  renova- 
tion of  the  Church  is  near  at  hand.  He  teaches  the  doctrine  of 
gratuitous  justification,  and  deals  with  the  Scriptures  as  the 
supreme  and  sufficient  authority.     But  a  mystical,  rather  than 

'  Weber,  Geschichtliche  Darstellung  d.  Calvinismus  im  VerhdUniss  zum  Staat, 
p.  33  seq. 


JACQUES   LEFEVRE   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES  211 

a  polemical  vein  characterizes  him;  and  while  this  prevented 
him  from  breaking  with  the  Church,  it  also  blunted  the  sharp- 
ness of  the  opposition  which  his  opinions  were  adapted  to  pro- 
duce. One  of  his  pupils  was  Brigonnet,  Bishop  of  Meaux,  who 
held  the  same  view  of  justification  with  Lefevre,  and  fostered 
the  evangelical  doctrine  in  his  diocese.  The  enmity  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  to  Lefevre  and  his  school  took  a  more  aggressive  form 
when  the  writings  of  Luther  began  to  be  read  in  the  University 
and  elsewhere.  The  theologians  of  the  Sorbonne  set  their  faces 
against  every  deviation  from  the  dogmatic  system  of  Aquinas. 
Reuchlin,  having  been  a  student  at  Paris,  had  hoped  for  support 
there  in  his  conflict  with  the  Dominicans  of  Cologne;  but  the 
Paris  faculty  declared  against  him.  In  1521  they  sat  in  judg- 
ment on  Luther  and  condemned  him  as  a  heretic  and  blasphemer.^ 
Heresy  was  treated  by  them  as  an  offense  against  the  State;  and 
the  ParHament,  the  highest  judicial  tribunal,  showed  itself 
prompt  to  carry  out  their  decrees  by  the  infliction  of  the  usual 
penalties.  The  Sorbonne  formally  condemned  a  dissertation  of 
Lefevre  on  a  point  of  the  evangelical  history,  in  which  he  had 
controverted  the  traditional  opinion.  He,  with  Farel,  Gerard 
Roussel,  and  other  preachers,  found  an  asylum  with  Brigonnet. 
Lefevre  translated  the  New  Testament  from  the  Vulgate,  and, 
in  a  commentary  on  the  Gospels,  expUcitly  pronounced  the  Bible 
the  sole  rule  of  faith,  which  the  individual  might  interpret  for 
himself,  and  declared  justification  to  be  through  faith  alone, 
without  human  works  or  merit.  It  seemed  as  if  Meaux  aspired 
to  become  another  Wittenberg.^  At  length  a  commission  of 
ParUament  was  appointed  to  take  cognizance  of  heretics  in 
that  district.  Brigonnet,  either  intimidated  or  recoiling 
at  the  sight  of  an  actual  secession  from  the  Church,  joined 
in  the  condemnation  of  Luther  and  of  his  opinions,  and 
even  acquiesced  in  the  persecution  which  fell  upon  Protestant- 
ism within  his  diocese.  Lefevre  fled  to  Strasburg,  was  after- 
wards recalled  by  Francis  I.,  but  ultimately  took  up  his  abode 
in  the  court  of  the  King's  sister,  Margaret,  the  Queen  of  Na- 
varre.^  At  about  the  time  of  his  death  (1536),  Calvin's  Institutes 

'  Melancthon  replied.     Seckendorf,  i.  185. 

^  Henri  Martin,  Histoire  de  France,  viii.   149. 

'  The  middle  path  which  Roussel  and  others,  who  accepted  the  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith,  but  remained  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  endeavored 
to  take,  is  exhibited  by  Schmidt  in  his  work,  Gerard  Roussel,  pridicateur  de  la 


212  THE   REFORMATION 

appeared,  which  gave  to  the  Huguenots  a  definite  creed  and  a 
unity  which  imparted  to  them  strength,  at  the  same  time  that 
it  cost  them  a  fraction  of  their  adherents. 

Margaret,  from  the  first,  was  favorably  inchned  to  the  new 
doctrines.  There  were  two  parties  at  the  court.  The  mother 
of  the  King,  Louisa  of  Savoy,  and  the  Chancellor  Duprat,  were 
allies  of  the  Sorbonne.  They  were  of  the  class  of  persons,  nu- 
merous in  that  age,  who  endeavor  to  atone  for  private  vices  by 
bigotry,  and  by  the  persecution  of  heterodox  opinions.  Mar- 
garet, on  the  contrary,  a  versatile  and  accomphshed  princess, 
cherished  a  mystical  devotion  which  carried  her  beyond  Bri- 
Qonnet  in  her  acceptance  of  the  teaching  of  the  Reformers.  But 
this  very  spirit  of  mysticism,  or  quietism,  produced  in  her  mind 
an  indifference  as  to  external  rites  and  forms  of  ecclesiastical 
order;  so  that  while  she  received  the  Protestant  idea  of  salva- 
tion by  faith,  and  of  the  direct  personal  communion  of  the  soul 
with  Christ,  she  was  not  moved  to  withdraw  from  the  mass,  or 
separate  formally  from  the  old  Church.  There  was  a  warm 
friendliness  for  the  reforming  preachers,  a  disposition  to  pro- 
tect them  against  their  enemies,  a  type  of  piety  that  no  longer 
relished  the  invocation  of  saints,  and  of  the  Virgin,  and  various 
other  peculiarities  of  the  Catholic  Ritual,  yet  left  the  sacraments 
and  the  polity  of  the  Church  unassailed.  The  passionate  attach- 
ment of  Margaret  to  her  brother,  of  which  so  much  has  been 
said,  illustrates  her  nature,  in  which  sensibility  had  so  large  a 
place.^  The  authoress  of  a  religious  poem,  the  "Mirror  of  the 
Sinful  Soul,"  which  was  so  Protestant  in  its  tone  as  to  excite 
the  wrath  of  the  Sorbonne,  and  of  many  devotional  hymns ;  she 
also  composed,  when  in  middle  life,  the  "  Heptameron,"  a  series 
of  tales  in  the  style  of  Boccaccio,  in  which  the  moral  reflections 
and  warnings  are  a  weak  antidote  to  the  natural  influence  of  the 
narratives  themselves.^     Before  the  death  of  her  first  husband, 

Reine  Marguerite  de  Navarre  (1845),  and  in  the  articles,  by  the  same  author,  in 
Herzog's  Realencycl.,  "Bri^onnet,"  "Gerard  Roussel,"  and  "Margaretha  von 
Orleans. " 

'  See  the  judicious  remarks  of  Henri  Martin,  viii.  83,  n.  4.  M.  Genin,  in  his 
Supplement  a  la  notice  sur  Marguerite  d'Angouleme,  which  forms  the  preface  to 
the  Nouvelles  Lettres  de  la  Reine  de  la  Navarre,  has  given  an  improbable  version 
of  this  "triste  myst^re,"  which  attributes  a  culpable  intention  to  the  sister.  An 
opposite  view  is  presented  by  Michelet,  La  Reforme,  p.  175. 

^  See  the  brief  but  admirable  remarks  of  Professor  Morley,  in  his  interesting 
biography  of  Clement  Marot  (London,  1871),  i.  272.  It  is  a  curious  illustration 
of  the  manners  of  the  French  nobility  at  this  time,  that  Margaret  should  be  the 


MARGARET   OF   NAVARRE  213 

the  Duke  of  Alengon,  and  while  she  was  a  widow,  she  exerted 
her  influence  to  the  full  extent  in  behalf  of  the  persecuted  Prot- 
estants, and  in  opposition  to  the  Sorbonne.  After  her  mar- 
riage to  Henry  d'Albret,  the  King  of  Navarre,  she  continued, 
in  her  own  little  court  and  principality,  to  favor  the  reformed 
doctrine,  and  its  professors.  Occasionally  her  peculiar  tempera- 
ment led  her  to  entertain  hospitably  enthusiasts  who  concealed 
an  antinomian  license  under  a  mystical  theory  of  gospel  liberty. 
Calvin  wrote  to  her  on  the  subject,  in  consequence  of  her  com- 
plaint respecting  the  language  of  his  book  against  this  sect.* 
He  somewhere  speaks  of  her  attachment,  and  that  of  her  friends, 
to  the  Gospel,  as  a  platonic  love.  Yet,  the  drift  of  her  influence 
appears  in  the  character  of  her  daughter,  the  heroic  Jeanne 
d'Albret,  the  mother  of  Henry  IV.,  and  in  the  readiness  of  the 
people,  over  whom  Margaret  immediately  ruled,  to  receive  the 
Protestant  faith.  Her  marriage  to  the  King  of  Navarre,  and 
retirement  from  the  French  court  were  preceded  by  the  return 
to  England  of  one  of  the  young  ladies  in  her  service,  Anne 
Boleyn,  whose  tragical  history  is  so  intimately  connected  with 
the  introduction  of  Protestantism  into  England.^ 

Francis  I.,  whose  generous  patronage  of  artists  and  men  of 
letters,  gave  him  the  title  of  "Father  of  Science,"  had  no  love 
for  the  Sorbonne,  for  the  Parliament,  or  for  the  monks.  He 
entertained  the  plan  of  bringing  Erasmus  to  Paris,  and  placing 
him  at  the  head  of  an  institution  of  learning.  He  read  the  Bible 
with  his  mother  and  sister,  and  felt  no  superstitious  aversion  to 
the  leaders  of  reform.  He  established  the  college  of  "  the  three 
languages,"  in  defiance  of  the  Sorbonne.  The  Faculty  of  The- 
ology, and  the  Parliament,  found  in  the  King  and  court  a  hin- 
drance to  their  persecuting  policy.  It  was  in  the  face  of  his 
opposition  that  the  Sorbonne  put  the  treatise  of  Lefevre  on  their 
list  of  prohibited  books.  It  was  not  through  any  agency  of  the 
King  that  the  company  of  reforming  preachers  in  Meaux  was 

writer  of  these  stories,  and  that  her  daughter,  the  virtuous  and  noble  Jeanne 
d'Albret,  should  have  published  them  in  the  first  correct  edition.  See  Merle 
d'Aubign^,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Time  of  Calvin,  ii.  170. 

'  The  treatise,  Contre  la  Secte  Fantastique  et  Furieuse  des  Libertines  qui  se 
disent  Spirituels  (1544).     Calvin's  Letter  is  in  Bonnet,  i.  429. 

^  The  Letters  of  Margaret  have  been  published  by  M.  Gdnin,  Lettres  de  Mar- 
guerite d'Angouleme  (1841) ;  Nouvelles  Lettres  de  la  Reine  de  Navarre  (1842).  To 
the  first  of  these  collections  is  prefixed  a  full  biographical  introduction.  Her 
character  and  career  are  described  by  Von  Polenz,  Gsch.  d.  Franzosische  Prat.,  i. 
199  seq. 


214  THE   REFORMATION 

dispersed.  The  revolt  of  the  Constable  Bourbon  made  it  neces- 
sary for  Francis  to  conciliate  the  clergy ;  and  the  battle  of  Pavia, 
followed  by  the  captivity  of  the  King,  and  the  regency  of  his 
mother,  gave  a  free  rein  to  the  persecutors.  An  inquisitorial 
court,  composed  partly  of  laymen,  was  ordained  by  Parliament. 
Heretics  were  burned  at  Paris,  and  in  the  provinces.  Louis  de 
Berquin,  who  combined  a  culture  which  won  the  admiration  of 
Erasmus,  with  the  religious  earnestness  of  Luther,  was  thrown 
into  prison.  The  King,  however,  on  his  return  from  Spain,  at 
the  earnest  intercession  of  Margaret,  set  him  free.  The  failure 
of  Francis,  in  his  renewed  struggle  in  Italy,  emboldened  the  per- 
secuting party.  Berquin,  who  had  commenced  a  prosecution 
against  Beda,  the  leader  of  the  heresy-hunting  commissioners 
appointed  by  the  Sorbonne,  was  again  taken  into  custody,  and 
this  time  was  burnt  before  the  King  could  interpose  to  save  him. 
The  theological  antagonists  of  Reform  went  so  far  as  to  endeavor 
to  put  restrictions  upon  the  professors  in  the  college  for  the 
ancient  languages,  and  even  to  lampoon,  in  a  scholastic  comedy, 
the  King's  sister,  against  whom  they  threw  out  charges  of  heresy, 
besides  condemning  her  book,  the  ''Mirror  of  the  Sinful  Soul." 
Francis  was,  at  this  time,  holding  a  conference  with  Clement 
VIL,  in  Provence,  and  on  his  return  was  extremely  indignant  at 
the  treatment  of  his  sister.  He  authorized  Gerard  Roussel  to 
preach  freely  in  Paris ;  and  when  Beda  raised  an  outcry  against 
his  sermons,  Francis  caused  Beda  to  be  banished  and  prosecuted 
for  sedition.     He  died  in  prison,  in  1537. 

At  this  moment  it  seemed  doubtful  what  course  France  would 
take  in  the  great  religious  conflict  of  the  period.  In  1534,  Henry 
VIII.  separated  England  from  the  Papacy,  and  made  himself 
the  head  of  the  English  Church.  This  event  made  a  profound 
impression  throughout  Christendom.  Since  the  Diet  of  Worms, 
the  Papacy  had  lost  the  half  of  Germany  and  of  Switzerland, 
then  Denmark  (in  1526),  then  Sweden  (in  1527),  and  now  Eng- 
land. The  Netherlands  were  deeply  agitated,  and  the  confla- 
gration which  Luther  had  kindled  was  spreading  into  Italy  and 
Spain.  The  Teutonic  portion  of  Christendom  was  lost  to  Rome; 
what  would  be  the  decision  of  the  Romanic  nations?  It  was 
inevitable  that  all  eyes  should  be  turned  to  France,  and  to  its 
King.^    Early  in  1534,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  came  to  negotiate 

'  Henri  Martin,  viii.  180. 


ROME,   THE    RENAISSANCE,   THE   REFORMATION       215 

in  person  with  Francis.  Margaret  corresponded  with  Melanc- 
thon,  whom  she  was  desirous  of  bringing  to  France.  The 
Landgrave  restored  the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg  to  his  possessions, 
and  in  Wiirtemberg  the  two  forms  of  worship,  Lutheran  and 
CathoUc,  were  made  free.  Francis  I.  had  approached  nearer  to 
the  Protestants;  and  the  death  of  Clement  VII.,  in  September 
of  this  year  (1534),  had  released  Francis  from  his  political  ties 
with  the  Medici  and  the  Papacy.  The  violent  spirit  of  the 
champions  of  the  Papacy  in  Paris,  the  offensive  proceedings  of 
monks  in  Orleans  and  elsewhere,  had  produced  a  reaction  un- 
favorable to  their  cause. 

An  eminent  modern  historian  of  France  has  depicted  the 
three  rival  systems,  Rome,  the  Renaissance,  and  the  Reforma- 
tion, which  were  presented  to  the  choice  of  France,  and  were 
represented  in  three  individuals,  who  happened  to  be  together 
for  a  moment  in  Paris  —  Calvin,  Rabelais,  Loyola.^  This  inter- 
esting passage  of  Martin  suggests  a  few  observations  which, 
however,  are  not  wholly  in  accord  with  his  own.  Calvinism 
was  a  product  of  the  French  mind.  In  its  sharp  and  logical 
structure  it  corresponded  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  French 
intellect.  In  its  moral  earnestness,  in  its  demand  for  the  reform 
of  ecclesiastical  abuses,  it  found  a  response  in  the  consciences  of 
good  men.  But  Calvinism  was  the  radical  type  of  Protestant- 
ism; it  broke  abruptly  and  absolutely  with  the  past,  and  must 
for  this  reason  encounter  a  vast  might  of  opposition  from 
traditional  feelings,  from  sacred  or  superstitious  associations. 
The  dogma  of  predestination,  which  Calvinism  put  in  the  fore- 
front of  its  theology,  would  stir  up  the  hostility  of  men  in  whom 
the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  was  predominant,  not  to  speak  of 
other  classes.  It  was,  moreover,  a  defect  that  Calvinism  did 
not  rise  to  the  level  of  religious  toleration.  In  the  midst  of  their 
own  sufferings,  the  Calvinistic  preachers  of  France  invoked  the 
arm  of  the  magistrate  to  suppress  and  punish  Anabaptists, 
Servetians,  and  the  like,  not  as  disturbers  of  civil  order,  but  as 
heretics.  But  stronger  than  any  other  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
the  Calvinistic  Reform  was  the  amendment  of  life  which  it  re- 
quired. It  was  too  stern,  unrelenting  a  foe  of  sensuality  to  make 
itself  tolerable  to  a  multitude  of  men  and  women,  in  the  court 
and  out  of  it,  who  could  have  endured  easOy  its  doctrinal  for- 

»  Ibid.,  184. 


216  THE   REFORMATION 

mulas  and  have  submitted  to  its  method  of  worship.  At  the 
opposite  extreme  from  Calvinism  was  the  spirit  of  Spanish 
CathoUcism,  the  reawakened  zeal  for  the  traditions,  the  author- 
ity, the  imaginative  worship  of  the  old  religion;  the  spirit  of 
the  Catholic  Reaction,  which  found  an  embodiment  in  Loyola 
and  his  famous  society.  With  this  spirit,  France  as  a  nation, 
France  left  to  its  natural  impulses  and  affinities,  did  not  sym- 
pathize. Between  these  mighty  contending  forces,  which  more 
and  more  were  coming  into  conflict,  was  the  literary,  philo- 
sophical, skeptical  temper  of  the  Renaissance,  which  found  an 
expression  in  that  strangest  of  writers,  Rabelais,  whose  extraor- 
dinary genius  has  been  acknowledged  by  the  profoundest 
students  of  literature,  whose  influence  upon  the  French  language 
has  been  compared  to  that  of  Dante  upon  the  Italian,  and  who 
veiled  under  a  mask  of  burlesque  fiction  —  of  filth  and  ribaldry, 
too,  we  must  add  —  his  ideas  upon  human  nature,  society, 
education,  and  religion.  The  follies  of  monks  and  priests,  the 
sophistry  and  ferocity  of  the  Sorbonne,  he  lashes  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  needed  powerful  protectors  to  save  him  from 
their  wrath.  His  own  religion  does  not  extend  beyond  a  theism, 
in  which  even  personal  immortality  has  no  clear  recognition.  It 
is  doubtless  true  that  one  type  of  thought  and  feeling  in  France 
at  that  day  is  reflected  on  the  pages  of  Gargantua  and  Pantag- 
ruel.  A  little  later,  a  skepticism  of  a  somewhat  modified  type, 
yet  a  genuine  product,  likewise,  of  the  Renaissance,  appears  in 
Montaigne.  Whatever  attractions  this  species  of  philosophical 
skepticism,  or  of  natural  religion,  may  have  for  the  French  mind, 
it  was  too  intangible  in  form,  it  had  too  little  of  earnestness  and 
courage,  to  mediate  between  the  two  resolute  combatants  who 
were  to  contend  for  the  possession  of  France.  Much,  if  not 
everything,  depended  on  the  path  which  the  hesitating  monarch, 
Francis  I.,  would  conclude  to  take.  The  French  monarchy,  it 
has  been  said,  which  had  been  emancipated  politically  from 
Rome  since  Philip  the  Fair,  had  nothing  to  gain  by  becoming 
Protestant.*  But  at  least  it  had  much  to  gain  by  preserving  its 
independence;  by  refusing  to  enlist  in  the  reactionary,  repress- 
ive policy  of  Spanish  Catholicism;  by  declining  to  partake  in 
a  work  in  which  the  House  of  Austria  had  taken  the  leading  part. 
But  Francis  I.  did  not  assume  a  distinct  and  independent  posi- 

'  Mignet,  quoted  by  Henri  Martin,  viii.  216. 


EQUIVOCAL  POSITION   OF   FRANCIS   I.  217 

tion.  He  did  not  embrace  Protestantism;  he  did  not  consist- 
ently throw  himself  upon  the  side  of  ultramontane  Catholicism. 
Now  partially  tolerating  the  Reformation,  and  now  persecuting 
it  with  base  cruelty,  he  adhered  to  no  definite  policy.  By  this 
undecided  and  vacillating  attitude  he  brought  upon  his  country 
incalculable  miseries,  civil  wars  in  which  France  became  "not 
the  arbiter,  but  the  prey,  of  Europe,"  and  its  soil  ''the  frightful 
theater  of  the  battle  of  sects  and  nations."  "His  dynasty  per- 
ished in  blood  and  mire,"  and  France  would  have  perished  with 
it,  had  not  this  fate  been  arrested  by  a  statesman  and  warrior 
whom  Providence  raised  up  to  mitigate  the  lot  of  his  country.^ 
Notwithstanding  his  friendly  professions  to  the  Lutherans,  it 
soon  appeared  that  if  Francis  would  have  been  glad  to  see  a 
Reformation  after  the  Erasmian  type,  he  had  no  sympathy  with 
attacks  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  Sacraments  or  upon  the  hier- 
archical system  of  the  Church,  the  topics  which  his  sister,  in  her 
writings,  had  avoided.  Nor  had  he  any  disposition  to  counte- 
nance movements  that  involved  a  religious  division  in  his  king- 
dom. As  long  as  religious  dissent  was  confined  to  men  of  rank 
and  education,  the  King  might  discountenance  the  use  of  force 
to  repress  it ;  but  when  it  penetrated  into  the  lower  ranks  of  the 
people,  the  case  was  different.  Unity  in  religion  was  an  element 
in  the  strength  of  his  monarchy,  of  which  he  boasted.  He  prized 
the  old  maxim,  "Un  roi,  un  foi,  un  loi."  When,  therefore,  in 
October,  1534,  inconsiderate  zealots  posted  at  the  corners  of  the 
streets  in  Paris,  and  even  on  the  door  of  the  King's  chamber  at 
Blois,  placards  denouncing  the  mass,  he  signalized  his  devotion 
to  the  Catholic  religion  by  coming  to  Paris  to  take  part  in  solemn 
religious  processions,  and  in  the  burning,  with  circumstances  of 
atrocious  cruelty,  of  eighteen  heretics.  Yet  again  he  showed 
himself  anxious  to  cement  a  political  alliance  with  the  German 
Protestants,  and  even  entered  into  negotiations  looking  to  a 
union  of  the  opposing  religious  parties.  He  went  so  far  as  to 
invite  Melancthon  to  Paris  to  help  forward  the  enterprise.  He 
claimed  that  the  persons  who  had  been  put  to  death  were  fanatics 
and  seditious  people,  whom  the  safety  of  the  State  rendered  it 
necessary  to  destroy.  In  truth,  the  Grand  Master,  Montmo- 
renci,  and  the  Cardinal  de  Tournon,  active  promoters  of  perse- 
cution, had  persuaded  him  that  the  posting  of  the  placards  was 

1  Martin,  p.  217. 


218  THE   REFORMATION 

the  first  step  in  a  great  plot  of  Anabaptists,  who  designed  to  do 
in  France  what  they  had  done  in  Miinster/  But  the  unwilling- 
ness of  Francis  to  produce  a  schism,  or  to  place  himself  in 
antagonism  to  the  Catholic  Church  obliged  him  (1543)  to  give 
his  approval  to  a  rigid  statement  of  doctrine,  in  opposition  to 
the  Protestant  views,  which  the  Sorbonne  put  forth,  in  the  form 
of  a  direction  to  preachers.^  It  was  their  answer  (in  twenty-six 
Articles)  to  the  Institutes  of  Calvin,  published  in  a  French  trans- 
lation. This  approval  by  the  King  followed  (in  1543)  the  issue 
by  him  of  several  severe  edicts,  one  of  them  the  ordinance  for  a 
sharper  process  in  the  trial  of  heretics  (1540).  Parliament,  as 
a  part  of  its  edict  (1542)  for  the  control  of  the  press,  ordained 
that  aU  copies  of  the  Institutes  should  be  surrendered  without 
delay.  After  an  interval,  they  were  burnt  in  a  solemn  style, 
and  the  first  Index  Expurgatorius  by  Parliament  was  issued  soon 
after.  He  even  did  not  lift  a  finger,  in  1545,  to  prevent  the 
wholesale  slaughter  of  his  unoffending  Waldensian  subjects.  His 
governing  aim  was  to  uphold  the  power  of  France,  and  to  with- 
stand and  reduce  the  power  of  the  Emperor.  Hence  he  culti- 
vated the  friendship  and  assisted  the  cause  of  the  Protestants 
in  Germany,  while  he  was  inflicting  imprisonment  and  death 
upon  their  brethren  in  France.  It  was  not  partiality  for  Prot- 
estantism, but  hostility  to  Charles,  that  moved  him;  and  so 
strong  was  this  sentiment,  that  he  did  not  hesitate  to  make 
common  cause  with  the  Turks,  for  the  sake  of  weakening  his 
adversary.  On  the  whole,  during  the  reign  of  Francis,  Prot- 
estant opinions  found  not  a  little  favor  among  the  higher  classes. 
For  a  while,  it  was  Lutheranism  that  was  adopted.  But  Luther 
was  too  thoroughly  a  German  to  be  congenial  to  the  French  mind. 
It  was  Calvinism,  as  soon  as  Calvinism  arose,  which  attracted  the 
sympathies  of  the  Frenchmen  who  accepted  the  Protestant  faith. 
After  the  mischievous  affair  of  the  placards,  the  closing  years 
of  the  reign  of  Francis  —  he  died  in  1547  —  were  a  period  of 
cruel  persecution,  when  Calvinists  were  driven  into  exile,  and  a 
large  number  suffered  cruel  torture  and  death.  The  courage 
and  quickened  zeal  of  the  victims  inspired  a  great  number  with 
sympathy  with  their  faith,  and  seemed  to  plant  Calvinism  in  a 
number  of  the  French  Universities,  and  in  nearly  all  the  prov- 
inces.    New  Protestant  churches  were  founded. 

>  Henri  Martin,  viii.  223.  *  Ranke,  i.  116. 


PROGRESS   OF   PROTESTANTISM  219 

Farel  and  Calvin  were  both  fugitives  from  persecution  in 
France.  Calvin  returned  to  Geneva  from  his  banishment  in 
1541.  More  and  more  Geneva  became  an  asylum  for  French- 
men whom  intolerance  drove  from  their  country.  Many  of 
them  came,  wearing  the  scars  which  the  instruments  of  torture 
had  left  upon  them.  As  the  victims  of  religious  cruelty  emerged 
from  the  passes  of  the  Jura  and  caught  sight  of  the  holy  city, 
they  fell  on  their  knees  with  thanksgivings  to  God.^  From  thirty 
printing-offices  of  Geneva,  Protestant  works  were  sent  forth, 
which  were  scattered  over  France  by  colporteurs  at  the  peril 
of  their  lives.  The  Bible  in  French  was  issued  in  a  little  volume, 
which  it  was  easy  to  hide;  also  the  Psalms,  in  the  version  of 
Clement  Marot,  with  the  interlinear  music  of  Goudimel.^  Calvin 
was  indefatigable  in  exhorting  and  encouraging  his  countrymen 
by  his  letters.  Preachers  who  were  trained  at  his  side  returned 
to  their  country  and  ministered  to  the  little  churches  which  long 
held  their  worship  in  secret.  The  Reformation  spread  rapidly, 
especially  in  the  south  of  France.  The  spectacle  of  godly  men 
of  pure  lives,  led  to  the  stake,  while  atheists  and  scoffers  were 
tolerated  if  they  would  go  to  the  mass,  alienated  many  from  the 
old  religion. 

Henry  II.,  who  succeeded  his  father  in  1547,  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  Protestantism.  He  might  support  the  Protestants 
abroad  when  a  political  object  was  to  be  gained,  as  when  he 
entered  into  a  treaty  with  Maurice  at  the  time  when  the  latter 
was  about  to  take  up  arms  against  the  Emperor;  but  at  home 
he  cooperated  with  the  Sorbonne,  who  were  more  and  more  busy 
in  their  work  of  extirpating  false  doctrine  by  burning  the  books 
and  persons  of  its  professors.  The  rage  of  the  common  people, 
and  even  the  holy  horror  of  Hcentious  courtiers,  were  excited 
by  fictitious  tales  of  abominable  vice  which  was  said  to  be  prac- 
ticed in  the  meetings  of  the  Huguenots.  To  be  objects  of  this 
sort  of  calumny  has  been  a  common  experience  of  sects  which 
have  been  obHged  to  conduct  their  rites  in  secrecy.^ 

Yet  in  this  reign  the  Protestant  opinions  made  great  prog- 

'  Sismondi,  Histoire  des  Francais,  xiii.  24  seq. 

^  See  an  eloquent  passage  on  the  influence  of  Geneva,  in  Michelet,  Guerres  de 
Religion,  p.  108. 

^  Such  accusations  were  brought  against  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Like 
charges  were  brought  against  the  early  Christians  in  the  Roman  Empire.  Gibbon, 
II.  ch.  XV. 


220  THE   REFORMATION 

ress.  In  1558  it  was  estimated  that  there  were  two  thousand 
places  of  reformed  worship  scattered  over  France,  and  congre- 
gations numbering  four  hundred  thousand.  They  were  organ- 
ized after  the  Presbyterian  form,  and  were  adherents  of  the 
Genevan  type  of  doctrine.  In  1559  they  ventured  to  hold  a 
general  synod  in  Paris,  where  they  adopted  their  confession  of 
faith  and  determined  the  method  of  their  church  organi- 
zation. 

After  Henry  concluded  the  disastrous  peace  of  Cateau-Cam- 
bresis,  by  which  his  conquests  in  Italy  and  in  the  Netherlands 
were  given  up  to  Spain,  and  his  daughter,  Elizabeth,  was  to  be 
married  to  Philip  II.,  and  his  sister,  Margaret,  to  the  Duke  of 
Savoy,  he  commenced  with  fresh  vigor  the  work  of  persecution. 
It  was  involved  in  this  treaty  that  the  two  kings  should  unite  in 
the  suppression  of  heresy.  "The  King  of  France,  which,  since 
the  reverses  of  Charles  V.,  had  been  the  first  power  in  Europe, 
bought,  at  the  price  of  many  provinces,  the  rank  of  Lieutenant 
of  the  King  of  Spain  in  the  Catholic  party."  ^  He  unexpect- 
edly presented  himself  in  a  session  of  Parhament,  where  a  milder 
poHcy  had  begun  to  find  advocates,  and  ordered  the  two  mem- 
bers who  had  expressed  themselves  most  emphatically  on  that 
side  to  be  shut  up  in  the  Bastile.  He  declared  that  he  would 
make  the  extirpation  of  heresy  his  principal  business,  and  by 
letter  threatened  the  Parliament  and  inferior  courts  in  case 
they  showed  any  leniency  to  heretics.  But  in  a  tilt  which 
formed  a  part  of  the  festivals  in  honor  of  the  marriages,  a 
sphnter  from  the  spear  of  Montgomery,  the  Captain  of  his 
Guards,  struck  his  eye  and  inflicted  a  deadly  wound.  It 
seemed  to  the  Protestants  that  in  the  moment  of  extreme 
peril  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  was  stretched  out  to  deliver 
them  (1559). 

Thus  far  persecution  had  failed  of  its  design.  "The  fanatics 
and  the  politicians  had  thought  to  annihilate  heresy  by  the 
number  and  atrocity  of  the  punishments :  they  perceived  with 
dismay  that  the  hydra  multiplied  itself  under  their  blows.  They 
had  only  succeeded  in  exalting  to  a  degree  unheard  of  before, 
all  that  there  are  of  heroic  powers  in  the  human  soul.  For  one 
martyr  who  disappeared  in  the  flames,  there  presented  them- 
selves a  hundred  more:    men,  women,  children,  marched  to 

»  Martin,  viii.  480. 


PERSECUTIONS   UNDER   HENRY   II.  221 

their  punishment,  singing  the  Psalms  of  Marot,  or  the  Canticle 

of  bimeon  Rappelez  votre  Serviteur, 

Seigneur  1    J  'ai  vu  votre  Sauveur. 

Many  expired  in  ecstasy,  insensible  to  the  refined  cruelties  of 
the  savages  who  invented  tortures  to  prolong  their  agony. 
More  than  one  judge  died  of  consternation  or  remorse.  Others 
embraced  the  faith  of  those  whom  they  sent  to  the  scaiTold. 
The  executioner  at  Dijon  was  converted  at  the  foot  of  the  pyre. 
All  the  great  phenomena,  in  the  most  vast  proportions,  of  the  first 
days  of  Christianity,  were  seen  to  reappear.  Most  of  the  vic- 
tims died  with  the  eye  turned  towards  that  New  Jerusalem, 
that  holy  city  of  the  Alps,  where  some  had  been  to  seek,  whence 
others  had  received  the  Word  of  God.  Not  a  preacher,  not  a 
missionary  was  condemned  who  did  not  salute  Calvin  from  afar, 
thanking  him  for  having  prepared  him  for  so  beautiful  an  end. 
They  no  more  thought  of  reproaching  Calvin  for  not  following 
them  into  France  than  a  soldier  reproaches  his  general  for  not 
plunging  into  the  melee."  ^ 

We  have  now  to  refer  to  the  circumstances  that  converted 
the  Huguenots  into  a  political  party.  With  the  accession  of 
Francis  II.,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  Catharine  de  Medici,  the  widow 
of  the  late  king  and  the  mother  of  his  successor,  hoped  to  gratify 
her  ambition  by  ruling  the  kingdom.  The  daughter  of 
Lorenzo  II.,  of  Florence,  and  the  niece  of  Clement  VII.,  her 
childhood  had  been  passed  in  an  atmosphere  of  duplicity,  and 
she  had  thoroughly  imbibed  the  unprincipled  maxims  of  the 
Italian  school  of  politics.  The  death  of  the  Dauphin  had  made 
her  husband  the  heir  of  the  throne ;  but  his  aversion  to  her  was 
such  that,  at  an  earher  day,  when  it  was  supposed  that  no  chil- 
dren would  spring  from  her  marriage,  there  was  an  idea  of  send- 
ing her  back  to  Italy.  She  had  to  pay  assiduous  court  to  the 
mistresses  of  her  father-in-law  and  her  husband.  Even  after 
the  birth  of  her  children  and  after  her  husband  ascended  the 
throne,  she  did  not  escape  from  her  humiliating  position.  She 
was  dependent  upon  the  good  offices  of  Diana  of  Poitiers, 
Henry's  mistress,  for  the  maintenance  of  relations  with  her 
husband,  whose  repugnance  to  her  was  partly  founded  on 
physical  peculiarities,  which  were  derived  from  her  profligate 
father  and  which  entailed  a  diseased  constitution  upon  her 

1  Martin,  viii.  480. 


222  THE   REFORMATION 

children/  Accustomed  from  early  childhood  to  hide  her 
thoughts  and  feelings;  without  conscience  and  almost  without 
a  heart;  caring  httle  for  religion  except  to  hate  its  restraints, 
Catharine  had  nursed  her  dream  of  ambition  in  secret.^  But 
the  fact  that  Francis  was  legally  of  age,  though  practically  in 
his  minority,  disappointed  her  hope.  It  immediately  appeared 
that  the  young  King  was  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  family 
of  Guise.  Claude  of  Guise  had  been  a  wealthy  and  prominent 
nobleman  of  Lorraine,  who  had  distinguished  himself  at  Marig- 
nano,  and  in  the  subsequent  contests  with  Charles  V.  Two  of 
his  sons,  Francis,  Duke  of  Guise,  and  Charles,  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine, had  acquired  great  power  under  Henry  II, :  the  Duke 
as  a  military  leader,  especially  by  the  successful  defense  of 
Metz  and  the  taking  of  Calais;  and  the  Cardinal  as  Confessor 
of  the  King,  whose  conscience,  Beza  says,  he  carried  in  his 
sleeve.  Both  were  unpopular,  the  Cardinal,  from  his  hostility 
to  heresy,  specially  odious  to  the  Protestants.  Their  sister 
had  married  James  V.,  of  Scotland;  and  her  daughter,  Mary 
Stuart,  who  was  to  play  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  history  of 
the  age,  was  wedded  to  the  youthful  King,  Francis  II.  He 
was  weak  in  mind  and  body,  and  it  was  not  difficult  for  the 
Cardinal  and  the  Duke,  both  of  them  aspiring  and  adroit  men, 
with  the  aid  of  the  vigorous  and  beautiful  young  Queen,  to 
maintain  a  complete  ascendency  over  him.  The  Cardinal  was 
supreme  in  the  affairs  of  State,  the  Duke  in  the  military  depart- 
ment. It  was  an  association  of  the  soldier  and  the  diplomatist, 
the  Hon  and  the  fox,  for  their  common  aggrandizement.  The 
Guises  set  themselves  up  as  the  champions  of  the  old  religion, 
although  they  at  first  adopted  the  policy  of  withstanding 
Charles  V.  through  an  alliance  with  the  Pope.  They  had  large 
hopes  of  acquiring  power  in  Italy,  and  assumed  to  inherit  the 
claim  of  the  house  of  Anjou  to  Naples.  On  the  accession  of 
Francis  their  first  step  was  to  induce  the  King  to  give  a  cour- 
teous dismissal  to  the  Grand  Constable,  Montmorenci,  who, 
with  his  numerous  relatives,  had  been  the  rivals  of  the  Guises 
and  had  shared  with  them  the  offices  and  honors  of  the  king- 

'  Michelet,  Guerres  de  Religion,  p.  43. 

*  Anquetil  strives  to  paint  Catharine,  in  some  points,  in  a  less  unfavorable 
light.  L'Esprit  de  la  Ligue,  i.  54.  She  is  characterized  by  the  Due  d'Aumale 
as  being  "witlaout  affections,  without  principles,  and  without  scruples."  History 
of  the  Princes  of  Condi,  i.  86. 


CATHARINE,   THE   GUISES,   AND   THE   HUGUENOTS     228 

dom.  It  was  by  the  support  of  Diana  of  Poitiers,  one  of  whose 
daughters  had  married  their  brother,  that  the  Guises  were  enabled 
first  to  make  themselves  the  equals  and  then  the  superiors  of  Mont- 
morenci,  whom  they  greatly  outstripped  in  political  sagacity/ 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  great  nobles  of  France 
would  quietly  see  the  control  of  the  government  practically 
usurped  by  persons  whom  they  considered  upstarts,  who  had 
seized  on  places  that  did  not  belong  to  them  by  the  laws  and 
customs  of  the  realm.  The  opposition  to  the  Guises  centered 
in  two  families,  the  houses  of  Bourbon  and  Chatillon.  The 
three  brothers  of  the  former  house  were  princes  of  the  blood, 
being  descended  by  a  collateral  line  from  Louis  IX.  Anthony 
of  Vendome,  the  eldest,  who  by  his  marriage  with  Jeanne  d'Al- 
bret,  the  daughter  of  Margaret,  wore  the  title  of  King  of  Na- 
varre, had  been  moved  to  take  the  side  of  the  Protestants,  but 
was  a  man  of  weak  and  vacillating  character.  He  had  no  loftier 
hope  than  to  get  back  from  Spain  his  principality  of  Navarre, 
or  to  provide  himself  with  an  equivalent  dominion  elsewhere. 
The  second  brother,  Charles,  the  Cardinal  of  Rouen,  was  of  a 
similar  temperament.  The  third,  Louis,  Prince  of  Conde,  was 
a  brave  man,  not  without  noble  quahties,  but  rash  in  counsel, 
and  not  proof  against  the  enticements  of  sensual  pleasure.  The 
Protestant  wives  of  these  men,  the  Queen  of  Navarre  and  the 
Princess  of  Conde,  a  niece  of  the  Constable,  had  more  firmness 
of  rehgious  conviction  than  their  husbands.  The  three  brothers 
of  the  house  of  Chatillon,  sons  of  Louisa  of  Montmorenci,  the 
sister  of  the  Constable,  were  men  of  a  nobler  make.  These 
were  Odet,  Cardinal  of  Chatillon,  Admiral  Coligny,  and  Dande- 
lot,  Colonel  of  the  Cisalpine  infantry.  Coligny  had  acquired 
great  credit  by  introducing  strict  discipline  into  the  French 
infantry,  and  by  valor  at  St.  Quentin  and  elsewhere.  In  all 
the  qualities  of  mind  and  character  that  constitute  human 
greatness,  he  was  without  a  peer.  His  attachment  to  the  Prot- 
estant cause  was  sincere  and  immovable. 

That  the  Bourbons  and  the  great  nobles  who  were  connected 
with  them  should  seek  the  support  of  the  persecuted  Calvinists, 
and  that  the  latter,  in  turn,  should  seek  for  deliverance  through 
them  was  natural.^  The  Guises  were  virtual  usurpers,  who 
had  taken  the  station  that  belonged  to  the  princes  of  the  blood, 

1  Henri  Martin,  viii.  362.  "  Ranke,  i.   154. 


224  The  reformation 

and,  at  the  same  time,  were  persecutors.  The  nobles,  their 
antagonists,  and  their  Protestant  co-reHgionists  had  a  common 
cause.  There  was  a  union  of  poHtical  and  rehgious  motives 
to  bind  them  all  together.  If  political  considerations  had  a 
governing  weight  with  Anthony  of  Navarre  and  some  other 
leaders,  this  was  the  misfortune,  and  a  heavy  misfortune  it 
proved,  of  the  Huguenots;  but  it  was  not  their  fault.  While 
it  is  vain  to  ignore  the  influence  of  political  aspirations,  it  is  a 
greater  error  of  some  writers,  like  Davila,  to  ascribe  the  whole 
movement  of  the  Huguenot  leaders  to  motives  of  this  character.* 
There  was  on  their  part  a  thorough  opposition  to  the  cruel  per- 
secution of  the  Calvinists,  and  an  attachment  to  their  cause, 
which,  if  it  was  inconstant  in  some  cases,  proved  in  others  a 
profound  and  growing  conviction,  such  as  no  terrors  and  no 
sacrifices  could  weaken. 

Calvin,  Uke  the  Lutheran  reformers,  preached  the  doctrine 
of  obedience  to  rulers,  and  uncomplaining  submission  to  suffer- 
ing and  death. ^  For  forty  years  the  unoffending  Huguenots 
had  acted  on  this  principle  and  submitted  to  indescribable  in- 
dignities and  cruelties,  inflicted  often  by  men  who  in  their  own 
daily  lives  violated  every  commandment  of  the  decalogue.  But 
even  Calvin  held  that  Christians  might  lawfully  take  up  arms, 
under  authorized  leaders,  to  overthrow  usurpation.  We  shall 
see,  moreover,  that  it  was  the  unchecked  atrocities,  not  of  the 
magistrates,  but  of  their  subjects,  acting  without  color  of  law, 
that  kindled  the  flames  of  civil  war.  But  in  France,  as  in 
Germany,  during  this  period,  the  reluctance  of  the  Protestants 
to  abandon  the  ground  of  passive  resistance  and  to  rise  against 
their  oppressors,  the  indecision  of  the  Protestants  on  this  ques- 
tion, more  than  once  cost  them  dear. 

1  Davila  (Storia  delle  Guerre  Civili  di  Francia)  describes  a  formal  meeting  in 
Vendome,  at  which  Cond6  and  others  advocated  an  open  war,  but  Coligny  per- 
suaded them  to  adopt  a  more  crafty  policy.  Davila  makes  the  conspiracy  of 
Amboise  the  result  of  this  conference.  But  it  is  not  credible  that  such  a  con- 
ference was  ever  held.  See  the  searching  criticism  of  Davila  by  Ranke,  Franz. 
Geschichte,  v.  3  seq. 

2  See  Henry,  iii.  548,  and  Beil.,  p.  154  seq.  Speaking  of  the  counsel  which  he 
gave  in  reference  to  the  Amboise  conspiracy,  Calvin  says  :  "Cependant  les  lamen- 
tations estoyent  grandes  de  I'inhumanit^  quon  exergoit  pour  abolir  la  religion: 
mesme  d'heure  en  heure  on  attendoit  une  horrible  boucherie,  pour  exterminer  tous 
les  povres  fideles."  He  says,  that  he  replied,  that  if  a  single  drop  of  blood  were 
shed,  rivers  of  blood  would  flow  over  Europe;  moreover  that  it  is  better  "for  us 
all  to  perish  a  hundred  times,  than  that  the  name  of  the  adherents  of  the  Gospel 
should  be  exposed  to  such  opprobrium." 


THE  CONSPIRACY   OP  AMBOISE  225 

The  conspiracy  of  Amboise  was  a  plot,  of  which  a  French 
gentleman,  La  Renaudie,  was  the  most  active  contriver,  to 
dispossess  the  Guises  of  their  position  by  force  and  to  place  the 
control  of  the  government  in  the  hands  of  the  princes  of  the 
blood.  Conde  appears  to  have  been  privy  to  it.  Coligny  re- 
fused to  take  part  in  it;  Calvin  tried  to  dissuade  La  Renaudie 
from  executing  his  project,  which  the  Reformer  sternly  disap- 
proved, unless  the  princes  of  the  blood,  not  Conde  alone,  but 
the  first  of  them  in  rank,  were  to  sanction  it,  and  Parliament 
were  to  join  with  them.^  The  Guises  were  forewarned  and  fore- 
armed, and  took  a  savage  revenge,  not  only  upon  the  conspira- 
tors, but  upon  a  great  number  of  innocent  Protestants,  whom 
the  conspirators  had  invited  to  the  court  to  present  their  peti- 
tions, but  who  had  no  further  complicity  in  the  undertaking 
(1560). 

The  commotion  of  which  this  abortive  scheme  was  an  im- 
pressive sign,  had  the  effect  to  moderate  for  the  moment  the 
policy  of  the  Cardinal.  The  prisons  were  opened  and  the 
Protestants  set  at  liberty.  The  Edict  of  Romorantin,  in  1560, 
passed  by  the  agency  of  L'Hospital,  no  friend  of  the  Guises, 
still  forbade  all  Protestant  assemblies  for  worship,  but  proceed- 
ings against  individuals  on  account  of  their  faith  were  to  be 
dropped.  The  tares,  it  was  said,  had  become  too  strong  to  be 
eradicated  from  the  field.  The  Protestants  made  an  appeal 
for  liberty  to  meet  together  for  worship.  Their  petition  was 
boldly  presented  to  the  King  in  an  Assembly  of  Notables  at 
Fontainebleau  by  Coligny,  who  had  espoused,  but  not  yet  pub- 
licly professed,  the  new  opinions.  At  the  same  time,  a  demand 
was  made  for  a  meeting  of  the  States  General,  to  consider  the 

'  See  Calvin's  letter,  cited  above,  on  the  subject  (April  16,  1561),  in  Henry, 
iii.  21 ;  Beil.,  p.  153.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  La  Renaudie  represented  Cond6 
to  be  the  silent  leader  of  the  enterprise.  That  he  was  is  generally  assumed,  and 
probably  with  truth.  Henri  Martin,  viii.  34  seq.  Sismondi,  Histoire  des  Fran- 
(;ais,  xviii.  132.  Due  d'Aumale,  History  of  the  Princes  of  Condi,  i.  56.  It  is  so 
stated  by  Beza,  Histoire  des  Eglises  R6f.,  i.  250.  Ranke  says:  "Mit  historischer 
Bestimmtheit  lasst  sich  selbst  nicht  sagen  ob  La  Renaudie  sich  mit  Cond6  vera- 
bredet  hatte."  (i.  147.)  Ranke  adverts  to  the  denial  of  Cond^ ;  but  he  only 
denied  that  he  had  been  a  party  in  any  enterprise  against  the  King  or  the  State. 
He  would  not  have  admitted  that  the  Conspiracy  of  Amboise  was  directed  against 
either.  See  Mrs.  Marsh's  interesting  work,  The  Prot.  Ref.  in  France  (London, 
1847),  i.  142,  n.  Brantome,  who  rises  to  something  like  enthusiasm  in  praising 
the  virtues  of  Coligny,  says  that  the  conspirators  were  prevented  by  his  known 
probity  and  sense  of  honor  from  imparting  to  him  their  secret.  Les  Hojnmes 
Illustres,  1.  III.  XX.  (M.  1 'Admiral  de  Chastillon).  Brantome  compares  Coligny 
and  Guise,  as  lapidaries  (he  says)  place  together  two  diamonds  of  exquisite  beauty. 


226  THE   REFORMATION 

finances  of  the  kingdom,  and  for  a  National  Council  to  regulate 
the  affairs  of  religion.  The  Cardinal  was  obliged  to  acquiesce. 
The  Guises  now  exerted  all  their  influence  to  combine  an  over- 
whelming party  against  the  Protestants  and  the  Bourbon 
princes.  Calvin  adhered  to  his  principle  and  discountenanced 
all  violence  on  the  side  of  the  Protestants,  who  were  inclined 
to  take  possession  of  churches;  but  he  sought  to  persuade  the 
princes  to  collect  the  nobles  of  Provence,  Languedoc,  and  Nor- 
mandy, and  make  such  a  demonstration  as  would  of  itself, 
without  bloodshed,  break  down  the  power  of  their  antagonists. 
The  frivolous  Anthony  of  Navarre  was  not  equal  to  so  manly 
an  undertaking.  Summoned  by  the  court  to  Orleans,  he  went 
with  Conde.  They  went,  aware  of  the  peril  in  which  they 
placed  themselves,  and  in  opposition  to  the  advice  of  their 
friends  and  the  entreaties  of  their  wives.  Conde  was  put  under 
arrest,  on  the  charge  of  complicity  in  the  Amboise  Conspiracy. 
The  King  of  Navarre  was  deprived  of  his  officers  and  guards, 
and  surrounded  with  soldiers  and  spies.  The  Deputies  of  the 
Estates,  as  they  arrived,  found  everything  in  the  hands  of  the 
Cardinal;  and  were  compelled,  at  the  outset,  to  sign  a  Catholic 
creed.  The  same  test  was  to  be  presented  to  the  chevaliers  of 
the  Order  of  St.  Michael,  the  French  cardinals,  the  prelates, 
the  nobles,  and  the  royal  officers  present  at  Orleans.  The 
laymen  who  should  refuse  to  sign  this  formulary  were  to  be 
deprived  of  all  their  offices  and  estates,  and  the  next  day  sent 
to  the  stake.  Ecclesiastics  were  to  be  remanded  to  their  own 
order  for  trial  and  judgment.  It  was  expected  that  Coligny 
and  Dandelot,  and  probably  their  brother,  the  Cardinal,  would 
be  involved  in  this  destruction  of  the  Protestant  leaders.  The 
same  creed  was  to  be  imposed  on  all  officials  and  pastors 
throughout  the  kingdom,  and  the  requirement  was  to  be  en- 
forced by  bodies  of  soldiers,  who  were  to  march  through  the 
land.  The  dominion  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  to  be  at  once 
established.  The  Guises  pushed  forward,  with  all  possible 
rapidity,  the  process  against  Conde,  who  was  charged  with 
high  treason.^     He  was  condemned,  and  the  10th  of  Decem- 

*  That  the  existence  of  this  plot  was  credited  by  the  Huguenot  leaders  ad- 
mits of  no  doubt.  For  the  evidence  of  its  reaHty,  which  appears  to  be  sufficient, 
see  Henri  Martin,  ix.  54,  n.  Ranke  says:  "Ich  habe  manches  gefunden,  wodurch 
diese  Behauptungen  " — the  reports  of  the  conspiracy — "bestatigt,  nichts  wo- 
durch  sie  ganz   ausser   Zweifel    gesetzt   wiirden."     i.    156.     Martin  says:    "The 


THE   ACCESSION    OF   CHARLES   IX.  227 

ber  was  the  day  fixed  for  his  execution.  Just  then,  on  the  5th 
of  December,  1560,  the  young  King  suddenly  died.  Once  more 
the  Protestants  felt  that  an  interposition  of  Providence  had 
saved  them.  ''When  all  was  lost,"  said  Beza,  "behold  the 
Lord  our  God  awoke  !" 

The  opportunity  of  the  Queen  Mother  had  come  at  last. 
The  question  whether  her  second  son,  Charles  IX.,  was  in  his 
minority,  could  not  be  doubtful.  She  assumed  the  practical 
guardianship  of  him,  and  with  it  a  virtual  regency.  The  plan 
of  the  Guises  to  crush  the  house  of  Bourbon,  and  their  sup- 
porters, by  a  single  blow,  had  failed.  L'Hospital  easily  con- 
vinced the  Queen  that  it  was  for  her  interest  to  liberate  Conde, 
and  to  put  a  check  upon  the  power  of  the  opposite  party,  which 
had  barely  failed  of  attaining  to  absolute  control.  The  Duke  was 
too  wise  to  attempt  to  retain  the  supremacy,  which  the  Cardinal, 
his  brother,  was  not  disposed  to  relinquish.  The  King  of  Navarre 
became  Lieutenant-general.  The  Constable  Montmorenci  re- 
covered the  direction  of  military  affairs,  but  the  Guises  kept 
their  places  in  the  Council,  and  Duke  Francis  retained  the  post 
of  master  of  the  royal  household.  But  the  favorable  attitude 
of  the  government  as  regards  toleration  reenforced  the  Protes- 
tants. The  Huguenots,  as  they  came  to  be  called,*  were  power- 
ful in  numbers,  and  still  more  in  the  character  of  their  party. 
Entire  counties  were  almost  wholly  Protestant.  They  were 
strong  among  the  nobles  and  educated  class.  Many  rich  mer- 
chants adliered  to  them.     But  their  largest  support  was  from 

authenticity  of  the  plot,  as  to  its  substance,  is  not  doubtful.  The  Guises  sent  as 
far  as  Turkey  to  induce  the  Sultan  not  to  hinder,  by  anj^  diversion  against  the 
Austrian  States,  the  work  of  the  destruction  of  heretics.  The  interminable  dis- 
cussions as  to  the  premeditation  of  St.  Bartholomew,  interesting  from  a  historical 
point  of  view,  are  extremely  vain  from  the  moral  point  of  view.  The  St.  Bar- 
tholomew —  that  is  to  say,  the  extermination  of  the  heretics  by  force,  open  or  with 
the  aid  of  stratagem  —  had  always  been  in  the  heart  of  the  chiefs  of  the  persecut- 
ing party.     They  massacred  when  they  could,  just  as  they  burned." 

1  Beza  explains  the  origin  of  the  name  Huguenots  (i.  269).  At  Tours  there 
was  a  superstitious  belief  that  the  ghost  of  Hugh  Capet  roamed  through  the  city 
at  night.  As  the  Protestants  held  their  meetings  in  the  night,  they  were  deri- 
sively called  Huguenots,  as  if  they  were  the  troop  of  King  Hugh.  This  expla- 
nation is  given  by  De  Thou,  Ixxiv.  741.  Other  writers,  among  them  Merle 
d'Aubigne  (i.  88),  derive  it  from  Eidgenots,  the  name  given  to  the  party  of  free- 
dom at  Geneva,  who  were  for  an  alliance  with  the  Swiss.  Martin  (\'iii.  28)  unites 
both  explanations.  Littr4  {Diet.  Francaise)  adopts  neither,  but  connects  the  term 
with  the  name  of  a  person.  A  derivation  from  the  langue  d'oc  of  southern  France 
has  been  recently  suggested,  the  word  "  duganau  "  indicating  "  owl-like,"  probably 
with  reference  to  night  meetings.  See  Bulletin  hist,  et  litt.,  for  1898,  p.  659  seq. 
The  name  seems  to  have  been  in  use  by  1552. 


228  THE   REFORMATION 

the  intelligent  middle  classes,  the  artisans  in  the  cities;  al- 
though not  a  few  of  the  lower  orders,  who  had  seen  the  world, 
and  were  practiced  in  bearing  arms,  were  in  the  Huguenot  ranks. 
In  a  representation  made  to  the  Pope,  in  1561,  by  the  middle 
party  of  French  prelates,  it  was  stated  that  a  quarter  of  the 
entire  population  of  the  kingdom  were  Protestants.  That  it 
would  be  impracticable  to  exterminate  them,  and  that  both 
parties  should  make  up  their  minds  to  live  together  in  peace, 
was  the  conviction  of  a  few  dispassionate  and  far-sighted  men, 
among  whom  was  the  Chancellor  L'Hospital,  who  had  been 
called  to  his  office  after  the  Conspiracy  of  Amboise,  and  who 
put  forth  his  best  exertions  to  recommend  this  wise  and  humane 
policy.  His  tolerant  views  were  reflected  in  edicts  of  the  States 
General  at  Orleans,  where,  also,  sound  reforms  were  adopted 
in  the  administration  of  justice;  but  these  measures  were  re- 
sisted by  Parliament,  and  by  the  Catholics  attached  to  the 
Guises.  The  Duke  of  Guise  was  joined  by  Montmorenci;  and 
they,  with  the  Marshal  of  Saint  Andre,  formed  the  Triumvirate 
with  which  the  feeble  King  of  Navarre  was  unequally  matched. 
Strife  arose  in  the  Council  between  the  two  parties.  It  was 
arranged,  much  to  the  joy  of  the  Protestants,  that  a  great  reli- 
gious conference  should  be  held  at  Poissy  to  see  if  the  two  parties 
could  come  to  an  agreement.  In  this  measure  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  concurred,  in  the  expectation  that  he  should  be 
able  to  bring  out  the  differences  between  the  Calvinists  and  the 
Lutherans,  and  deprive  the  former  of  their  natural  allies  in  the 
event  of  a  religious  war,  which  he  probably  anticipated.  The 
elections  from  the  nobility  and  the  third  estate  for  the  States 
General,  which  first  assembled,  in  1561,  at  Pontoise,  and  after- 
wards adjourned  to  Poissy,  were  extremely  unfavorable  to  the 
Guise  faction.  This  meeting  was  really  a  crisis  in  the  history 
of  France.^  The  noblesse  and  the  commonalty  were  united 
against  the  clergy,  and  presented  measures  of  constitutional 
reform  of  a  startling  character,  such,  had  they  been  carried 
through,  as  would  have  brought  the  French  system  of  govern- 
ment into  a  striking  resemblance  to  that  of  England,  would 
have  carried  the  nation  along  in  one  path,  and  prevented  the 
civil  wars.  The  Pope,  the  clergy,  and  the  King  of  Spain  united 
in  efforts  to  stem  the  prevailing  current  towards  compromise 

1  Ranke,  i.  164,  165.     Henri  Martin,  ix.  93. 


THE   COLLOQUY   AT   POISSY  229 

or  peace  between  the  opposing  confessions.  But  the  religious 
colloquy  was  held.  It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1561.  In  the 
great  Refectory  of  the  Benedictines  at  Poissy,  the  young  King 
sat  in  the  midst  of  the  aristocracy  of  France  —  Catharine 
de  Medici,  the  King  of  Navarre,  and  the  Prince  of  Conde,  the 
great  lords  and  ladies  of  the  court,  cardinals,  bishops,  and 
abbots,  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne,  and  a  numerous  company  of 
lesser  nobles,  with  their  wives  and  daughters.  In  this  brilliant 
concourse,  Theodore  Beza  appeared  at  the  head  of  the  preachers 
and  elders  deputed  by  the  Huguenots  to  represent  their  cause, 
and  eloquently  set  forth  the  doctrines  of  the  party  of  reform. 
Beza  was  a  man  of  high  birth,  of  prepossessing  appearance,  of 
graceful  and  polished  manners,  who  was  at  his  ease  in  the 
society  of  the  court,  and,  prior  to  the  public  conference,  won 
the  respect  and  favor  of  many  of  his  auditors  by  his  attractive- 
ness in  social  intercourse.^  It  was  something  gained  for  Protes- 
tantism, when  such  a  man,  with  whom  there  could  be  no 
reluctance  to  associate  on  equal  terms,  was  seen  to  come  forward 
in  its  defense.  But  Beza,  besides  being  an  impressive  speaker, 
was  an  erudite  scholar,  with  his  learning  so  perfectly  at  com- 
mand that  he  could  not  be  perplexed  by  his  adversaries.  At 
one  time  there  was  some  prospect  of  an  agreement,  even  in  a 
general  definition  of  the  Eucharist.  The  final  result  of  the 
mterviews,  public  and  private,  that  took  place  in  connection 
with  the  conference,  was  to  convince  both  parties  that  no  com- 
promise on  the  points  of  theological  difference  was  practicable. 
Widespread  disturbances  in  France,  for  one  thing,  moved 
Catharine  to  call  together  a  new  Conference  at  St.  Germain 
(January,  1562).  There  the  Chancellor  frankly  and  boldly 
set  forth  the  principles  of  religious  toleration. 

On  the  17th  of  January,  1562,  was  issued  the  important 
Edict  of  St.  Germain.  It  gave  up  the  policy,  which  had  been 
pursued  for  forty  years,  of  extirpating  religious  dissent.  It 
granted  a  measure  of  toleration.  The  Protestants  were  to  sur- 
render churches  of  which  they  had  taken  possession  and  were 
to  build  no  more.  On  the  other  hand,  they  might,  until  further 
order  should  be  taken,  hold  their  religious  meetings  outside  of 
the  walls  of  cities,  by  daylight,  without  arms  in  their  hands; 

>  See  H.  M.  Baird,  Theodore  Beza  (1899),  p.  139  seq.,  for  a  full  account  of  the 
Colloquy. 


230  THE  REFORMATION 

and  their  meetings  were  to  be  protected  by  the  pohce.  They 
were  to  pay  regard  to  the  festival  days  of  the  CathoHc  Church, 
were  to  assemble  no  consistories  or  synods  without  permis- 
sion, were  not  to  enter  into  any  military  organization  or  levy 
taxes  upon  one  another,  and  were  to  teach  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, without  insulting  the  mass  and  other  Catholic  institutions. 
It  was  a  restricted  toleration,  but  the  practice  had  been  to  give 
to  edicts  of  this  nature  some  latitude  of  construction.  Calvin 
rejoiced  in  it,  and  the  Calvinists  felt  that  under  it  they  could 
convert  the  nation  to  the  Protestant  faith.  Not  until  the  6th 
of  March  could  the  vote  be  carried  in  Parliament  to  register  the 
Edict,  and  it  was  not  long  observed.  The  papal  legate  and  the 
Catholic  chiefs  succeeded  in  inducing  the  King  of  Navarre  to 
abandon  the  Protestant  cause.  He  was  told  that  the  Pope 
would  annul  his  marriage,  and  that  he  could  then  wed  Mary, 
the  young  Queen  of  Scotland.  He  was  not  base  enough  to  coun- 
tenance this  proposal.^  The  throne  of  Sardinia  was  held  out 
to  him  as  a  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Navarre.  The  only 
hope  for  the  success  of  the  tolerant  policy  of  L'Hospital  had 
rested  in  the  union  of  the  Queen  Mother  with  the  princes  of  the 
blood;   and  this  union  was  now  broken. 

The  leaders  of  the  Catholic  party  were  resolved  not  to  ac- 
quiesce in  a  policy  of  toleration,  not  to  give  up  the  idea  of  obtain- 
ing uniformity  by  coercion.  The  massacre  of  Vassy  was  the 
event  that  occasioned  war.  On  Sunday  morning,  the  1st  of 
March,  1562,  the  Duke  of  Guise  arrived  at  the  village  of  Vassy 
on  his  way  to  Paris,  at  the  head  of  a  retinue  of  several  hundred 
nobles  and  soldiers.  The  Protestants  were  holding  their  reli- 
gious service  in  a  spacious  barn.  Thither  he  sent  some  of  his 
men,  who  provoked  a  conflict.  The  rest  of  the  troop  came  to 
the  spot,  tore  off  the  door,  and  with  guns  and  sabers  slaughtered 
and  wounded  a  large  number  of  the  unarmed,  defenseless  con- 
gregation, and  plundered  their  houses.  Guise  looked  on  and 
did  not  hinder  the  work.  In  fact,  he  had  come  to  town  with 
the  design  of  putting  an  end  to  the  Huguenot  worship  there. ^ 
Their  preacher,  bleeding  from  his  wounds,  he  carried  off  as  a 
prisoner.  The  Duke  was  received,  especially  in  Paris,  with 
acclamations.  The  Protestants  throughout  France  justly 
considered  his  deed  a  wanton  and  atrocious  violation   of  the 

'  Due  d'Aumale,  i.  88.  2  Henri  Martin,  ix.  113. 


THE   HUGUENOT   WARS  231 

Religious  Peace,  and  flew  to  arms.  In  every  parish  a  crusade 
was  preached  against  the  Huguenots,  and  the  scenes  of  cruelty 
that  followed  have  been  styled,  by  a  French  historian,  the  St. 
Bartholomew  of  1562.  The  Triumvirs  seized  the  persons  of 
the  Queen  Mother  and  the  King,  and,  either  with  or  without 
their  consent,  conveyed  them  to  Paris,  where  the  whole  popu- 
lation were  full  of  hatred  to  the  heretics.  Another  massacre 
at  Sens,  even  more  cruel  than  that  of  Vassy,  was  the  signal  for 
an  outburst  of  iconoclastic  fury  on  the  side  of  the  Huguenots, 
which  was  attended  with  a  great  destruction  of  monuments 
of  art  and  the  profanation  of  sepulchers.  It  was  true  of  the 
Huguenots  that,  ''less  barbarous,  in  general,  than  their  adver- 
saries, toward  men,  their  rage  was  implacable  against  things" 
—  against  whatever  they  considered  objects  or  signs  of  idolatry.* 
Thus  began  the  series  of  terrible  wars,  which  only  terminated 
with  the  accession  of  Henry  IV.  to  the  throne.  In  the  devasta- 
tion which  they  caused  they  may  be  compared  to  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  in  Germany.  France  was  a  prey  to  religious  and 
political  fanaticism.  The  passions  that  are  always  kindled  in  civil 
wars  were  made  the  more  fierce  from  the  religious  consecration 
which  was  imparted  to  them.  Other  nations,  as  was  inevitable, 
mingled  in  the  frightful  contest,  and  France  had  well-nigh  lost 
its  independence.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Huguenots 
acted  in  self-defense.  As  we  have  said,  their  connection  with  a 
political  party,  whatever  evils  were  incidental  to  it,  was  the 
unavoidable  result  of  the  course  taken  by  their  antagonists, 
who  attacked  at  once  the  Protestant  religion  and  the  rights 
of  the  princes  who  professed  it.  But  it  was  private  violence 
countenanced  by  the  authorities,  against  which  the  Huguenots 
rose  in  arms.  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  the  Huguenot  historian  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  says :  "  It  is  to  be  forever  observed,  that 
as  long  as  they  put  the  reformed  to  death  under  the  forms  of 
justice,  however  iniquitous  and  cruel  it  was,  they  stretched 
out  their  necks,  but  not  their  hands;  but  when  the  public 
authority,  the  magistrates,  weary  of  their  burnings,  threw  the 
knife  into  the  hands  of  the  crowd,  and  by  tumults  and  great 
massacres  took  away  the  venerable  face  of  justice,  and  caused 
neighbor  to  be  slain  by  neighbor  to  the  sound  of  trumpets  and 

*  Henri  Martin,  ix.  124.    On  these  wars  see  A.  J.  Butler,  in  Cambridge  Modern 
History,  iii.  1  seq. 


232  THE  REFORMATION 

drums,  who  could  prevent  the  miserable  victims  from  opposing 
arm  to  arm,  steel  to  steel,  and  from  taking  the  contagion  of  a 
just  fury  from  a  fury  without  justice?  .  .  .  Let  foreign  nations 
judge  whether  we  or  our  enemies  have  the  guilt  of  war  upon 
the  forehead."^ 

Rouen  was  captured  by  the  Catholics  and  sacked.  There 
the  King  of  Navarre,  fighting  on  the  Catholic  side,  received  a 
mortal  wound.  In  the  battle  of  Dreux,  the  Protestants,  led 
by  Coligny  and  Conde,  were  worsted,  but  their  power  was  not 
broken.  Shortly  after,  the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  was  endeavor- 
ing to  take  Orleans,  was  assassinated  by  a  Huguenot  nobleman. 
The  act  was  condemned  by  Calvin,  nor  had  it  the  sanction  of 
any  of  the  Protestant  leaders,  however  they  may  have  refrained 
from  exerting  themselves  to  hinder  it.  Coligny  declared  that 
he  had  prevented  the  execution  of  similar  plots  before,  that  he 
had  no  agency  in  this,  but  that  for  the  six  months  previous, 
from  the  time  when  he  had  heard  that  the  Duke  and  his  brother, 
the  Cardinal,  had  formed  the  design  to  destroy  him  and  his 
family,  he  had  ceased  to  exert  himself  to  save  the  Duke.  A 
year  after  the  massacre  of  Vassy,  the  edict  of  Amboise  reestab- 
lished peace  on  terms  more  favorable  to  the  high  nobles  on  the 
Protestant  side  than  the  preceding  edict,  but  less  favorable  to 
the  smaller  gentry  and  to  the  towns,  inasmuch  as  they  were 
allowed  but  a  single  place  of  worship  in  a  district  or  bailliage. 
Paris  was  excepted:  there  Protestant  worship  was  not  to  be 
tolerated.  The  capital  became  more  and  more  a  stronghold 
of  Catholic  fanaticism.  The  settlement  was  negotiated  by 
Conde,  but  Coligny  refused  to  give  his  sanction  to  its  provisions, 
which  were  most  unacceptable  to  the  body  of  the  Protestants, 
who  were  confident  that  better  terms  might  have  been  made. 

This  pacification  could  not  be  of  long  endurance.  The 
Huguenots  saw  from  the  threatening  attitude  of  the  court  and 
the  hostile  movements  of  their  adversaries  that  there  was  no 
intention  to  observe  it.  They  anticipated  the  attack  by  them- 
selves resorting  to  arms;  a  measure  which  the  leaders  felt 
obliged  to  adopt,  though  not  without  grave  misgivings.  They 
extorted  the  Peace  of  Longjumeau  (1568),  which,  however, 
reestablished  substantially  the  Edict  of  Pacification.     Conde 's 

'  Agrippa  d'Aubign^,  Hist.  Universelle  (1616-18).  G.  de  Felice,  Hist,  des 
Protestants  dc  France,  p.   160. 


THE   HUGUENOT   WARS  233 

lack  of  judgment  was  hardly  less  conspicuous  than  his  valor 
in  the  field/  Charles  IX.  was  filled  with  chagrin  and  indigna- 
tion at  being  driven  to  make  an  accommodation  with  his  sub- 
jects in  arms.  The  bitter  animosity  of  the  Catholics  through 
the  country  was  stirred  up  against  the  Huguenots.  But  a 
few  months  before,  the  Duke  of  Alva  had  executed  Egmont  and 
Horn  in  the  Netherlands.  At  Bayonne,  where  Alva  had  met 
the  Queen  Mother  and  her  daughter,  EUzabeth  of  Spain,  he 
had  spared  no  pains  to  induce  the  French  court  to  proceed  to 
extreme  measures  against  the  Huguenots.  But  the  young 
King  was  then  averse  to  the  renewal  of  the  war  and  to  a  resort 
to  cruel  persecution,  and  the  Queen  Mother  refused  to  give  way 
to  Alva's  persuasions.^  Her  aim  was  to  balance  the  parties 
against  each  other,  so  that  neither  of  them  could  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  endanger  her  own  power.  The  words  of  Alva,  how- 
ever, made  a  stronger  impression  on  Montpensier,  Montluc,  and 
other  CathoHc  nobles.  The  last  conflict,  which  the  Huguenots 
had  begun,  had  exasperated  all  who  were  not  of  their  party. 
The  Catholic  counter-reformation  was  in  progress,  and  Jesuit 
preachers  inflamed  the  anger  of  the  Catholic  population.  PhiHp 
and  Alva  renewed  their  efforts,  which  were  seconded  by  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  in  the  Council.  The  Huguenots,  the  King 
was  told,  were  rebels ;  if  they  were  not  subdued,  he  could  not  be 
the  ruler  of  the  land.  Thus  war  was  once  more  renewed,  under 
Spanish  influence  and  cooperation.  The  Huguenots  were  now 
in  arms  to  defend  their  liberties  against  a  perfidious  conspiracy. 
The  Prince  of  Conde  and  the  Admiral  CoUgny  had  found  safety 
in  Rochelle,  the  town  which  often  proved  the  bulwark  of  the 
Protestant  cause,  and  more  than  once  saved  it  from  fatal  dis- 
aster. The  Edict  of  Pacification  was  annulled.  The  Hugue- 
nots were  beaten  at  Jarnac  in  1569,  where  Conde  fell,  leaving 
his  name  to  his  eldest  son  Henry,  a  youth  of  seventeen;  and 
the  same  year  they  were  defeated  again  at  Moncontour.  Now 
Rochelle  proved  its  value  to  the  Protestants,  who,  under  Co- 
ligny,  successfully  defended  the  city  against  the  victorious 
enemy. 

It  seems  strange  that  the  court  should  have  been  inclined 

*  The  Due  d'Aumale,  who  defends  the  Edict  of  Amboise,  admits  that  in  this 
last  treaty  Cond6  made  a  false  step,  and  adds,  "It  must  be  allowed  that  his  heart 
was  larger  than  his  intellect,"  i.  264. 

^  The  usual  opposite  representation  is  corrected  by  Ranke,  i.  193. 


234  THE  REFORMATION 

to  make  peace  at  this  time.  But  the  war  was  not  like  the 
former  contests,  a  local  one.  It  was  a  general  war,  in  which 
foreign  nations  were  concerned.  The  Huguenots  were  aided 
by  money  from  England  and  troops  from  Germany.  When 
they  had  been  shut  up  in  Rochelle,  where  the  Queen  of  Na- 
varre held  her  court,  they  fitted  out  a  small  fleet  which  they 
used  with  much  effect  along  the  coast.  It  was  a  characteristic 
of  CoUgny  that,  though  often  beaten  in  the  field,  he  was  able, 
after  defeat,  to  keep  together  his  forces  and  resume  hostilities. 
He  was  soon  strong  enough  to  sally  forth  from  Rochelle  and  to 
traverse  France  at  the  head  of  a  body  of  three  thousand  horse, 
the  most  of  whom  were  Germans,  and  whose  progress,  especially 
as  it  was  known  that  the  young  princes,  Navarre  and  Conde, 
were  among  them,  awakened  enthusiasm  wherever  they  ap- 
peared. The  perseverance  of  the  Huguenots  and  their  con- 
tinued strength,  unexhausted  by  defeat,  constituted  one  of  the 
arguments  for  peace.  Jealousy  of  Spain  was  the  other.  The 
ambition  of  Phihp  excited  alarm  among  the  French.  He  had 
a  scheme  for  effecting  the  liberation  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
and  of  marrying  her  to  Don  John  of  Austria,  his  half-brother, 
by  which  he  hoped  to  bring  Scotland,  and  ultimately  England, 
under  Spanish  control.  He  proposed  to  marry  his  sister  to  the 
young  King  of  France.  If  these  plans  should  be  carried  out, 
England,  Scotland,  France,  and  the  Netherlands  might,  like 
Italy,  be  made  subordinate  to  Spain.  It  was  felt,  moreover, 
that  he  was  taking  part  in  the  war  against  the  Huguenots 
mainly  to  promote  his  selfish  interest,  and  that  he  rendered 
less  assistance  than  the  enemy  gained  from  their  German  alHes. 
The  court,  in  1570,  agreed  to  the  treaty  of  St.  Germain,  by 
which  the  provisions  of  the  Edict  of  Pacification  were  revived, 
and  four  fortified  towns,  of  which  Rochelle  was  one,  were  put 
for  two  years  into  the  hands  of  the  Huguenots,  as  a  guarantee 
for  their  safety  and  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  stipulations. 

Thus  the  obstinate  refusal  to  grant  a  moderate  degree  of 
religious  liberty  led  to  the  necessity  of  a  vastly  greater  conces- 
sion, through  which  the  kingdom  was  divided  against  itself  — 
another  kingdom  being,  as  it  were,  established  within  it.  Yet 
it  was  a  measure  which  the  Huguenots,  after  their  experience 
of  the  perfidy  of  the  court,  had  no  alternative  but  to  demand. 

The  conclusion  of  this  peace  with  the  Huguenots  brought 


THE   HUGUENOT   WARS  235 

upon  the  European  states  a  political  crisis  of  great  moment. 
It  seemed  likely  that  France  would  take  part  in  a  coalition 
against  Philip  II.  The  state  of  things  in  the  Netherlands  at 
this  juncture  was  favorable  for  such  an  alliance.  The  union  of 
PhiHp  with  Venice  and  with  the  Pope,  and  the  victory  of  Lepanto, 
increased  the  jealousy  with  which  France  and  England  looked 
on  his  ambitious  designs.  It  was  proposed  that  the  Duke  of 
Anjou,  the  heir  of  the  French  crown,  should  marry  Queen 
Elizabeth,  and,  when  this  negotiation  was  broken  off,  that  his 
younger  brother,  the  Duke  d'Alengon,  should  marry  her.  The 
Queen  Mother  was  in  apparent,  and  probably  sincere,  accord 
with  this  new  policy.  The  sons  of  the  Constable  Montmorenci 
were  then  powerful  at  court,  and  it  was  one  of  them,  the  Mar- 
shal Francis,  who  suggested  the  marriage  of  the  youngest  daugh- 
ter of  Catharine,  Margaret  of  Valois,  to  Henry  of  Navarre.  The 
Queen  Mother  fell  in  with  the  proposal,  and  the  Huguenots 
were  not  averse  to  it.  At  about  the  same  time  Conde  was 
married  to  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Cleve.  So  ardent  were 
the  hopes  of  the  Protestants  that  Coligny  himself  came  to  the 
court  and  was  warmly  received  by  Catharine. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  purest  and  loftiest  character.  On  his 
own  estate,  he  punctually  attended,  with  his  family  and  de- 
pendents, the  Calvinistic  worship;  and  at  each  recurrence  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  he  was  at  pains  to  heal  all  quarrels  and 
differences  among  his  people.  He  entered  into  the  civil  wars 
with  the  utmost  reluctance  and  sorrow,  in  obedience  to  the 
imperative  call  of  duty,  and  in  compliance  with  the  counsels 
of  his  wife,  who  equaled  him  in  piety  and  in  nobleness  of  soul. 
He  did  not  allow  the  spirit  of  a  patriot  to  sink  in  that  of  a  par- 
tisan. Notwithstanding  that  he  stood  at  the  head  of  a  power- 
ful party,  and,  though  a  subject,  was  able  to  make  peace  or 
war,  he  was  broad  and  disinterested  in  all  his  plans.  Grave  in 
his  deportment,  inflexible  in  his  principles,  blameless  in  his 
morals,  with  an  immutable  trust  in  God,  he  presents  a  com- 
manding figure  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  and  corruption  of 
the  times.  It  was  the  hatred  of  Catharine  de  Medici  to  Coligny 
that  led  to  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  She  saw  how 
deeply  the  King  was  impressed  with  his  abilities  and  excellence. 
Charles  IX.,  sickly  in  body,  like  the  other  sons  of  Henry  IL, 
and  with  an  unhealthy,  unregulated  nature,  —  all  the  bad  ten- 


236  THE  REFORMATION 

dencies  of  which  had  been  fostered  in  the  base  and  dissolute 
society  in  which  he  had  been  reared,  and  by  the  influence  of 
his  mother,  whose  supreme  purpose  was  to  keep  up  her  own 
ascendency  over  him,  —  now  felt  for  the  first  time  the  inspir- 
ing influence  of  a  man  who  could  awaken  in  him  something  of 
reverence  and  love.  The  Queen  saw  that  day  by  day  she  was 
becoming  supplanted,  simply  by  the  natural  impression  which 
Coligny  made  upon  her  son.  The  best  hopes  were  awakened 
in  Coligny's  own  mind  by  the  almost  filial  regard  with  which 
the  King  listened  to  him.  He  urged  most  earnestly  that  war 
should  be  declared  against  Spain,  and  the  King  was  inchned  to 
take  the  step.  However  Catharine  might  be  disposed  to  pre- 
vent Philip  from  acquiring  a  power  in  France  that  could  be 
dangerous  to  herself,  she  was  not  of  a  mind  to  enter  into  a  war 
against  him;  a  war,  too,  that  must  incidentally  add  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  Huguenots,  and  confirm  the  influence  of 
Coligny  over  the  King.  Whom  would  he  follow,  Catharine  or 
Coligny?  Warm  words  passed  between  Coligny  and  the  Queen 
Mother,  in  the  presence  of  Charles.  The  Admiral  said  that  the 
King  might  be  involved  in  war,  even  against  his  will  —  referring 
to  the  conflict  in  the  Netherlands,  into  which  Coligny  was  urg- 
ing him  to  enter.  It  was  pretended  afterwards  that  he  had 
thrown  out  a  threat  of  rebellion.  Catharine  determined  to 
destroy  him.  She  called  in  the  aid  of  the  Guises,  his  implacable 
enemies,  who  longed  to  avenge  upon  him  the  assassination  of 
their  relative.  Her  second  son,  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  afterwards 
Henry  III.,  on  whom  she  doted  and  who  was  equally  alarmed 
at  the  feeling  which  the  King  manifested  to  Coligny,  engaged 
cordially  in  the  plot.  The  Duchess  of  Nemours,  the  widow  of 
Francis,  and  the  mother  of  Henry  of  Guise,  willingly  aided  in 
devising  and  carrying  out  the  diabolical  scheme.  Coligny  was 
wounded  by  a  shot  from  a  window  of  an  adherent  of  the  Guises. 
This  was  on  the  22d  of  August,  1572.  The  wound  was  not 
dangerous,  and  the  plot  had  miscarried.  The  failure  involved 
the  more  peril  to  the  authors  of  it,  from  the  sympathy  with  the 
Admiral  which  the  King  expressed,  and  from  his  indignation  at 
the  Guises,  who  were  known  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  it.  In  a 
visit  to  Coligny,  in  which  the  Queen  Mother  accompanied  the 
King,  the  wounded  veteran,  who  at  that  time  thought  that  the 
bullets  which  had  struck  him  might  have  been  poisoned,  called 


THE   MASSACRE   OF   ST.   BARTHOLOMEW  237 

him  to  the  bedside,  and,  in  an  undertone,  cautioned  him  against 
yielding  to  the  counsels  of  Catharine  and  the  faction  with  which 
she  had  alUed  herself.  By  the  most  importunate  urging,  she 
extorted  from  Charles  a  statement  of  what  the  Admiral  had  said. 
Thereupon  the  plan  of  a  general  massacre  was  matured. 
Had  it  been  thought  of  before?  Pains  had  been  taken  to  col- 
lect the  Huguenots  from  all  quarters  into  the  city.  Catharine 
had  insisted  that  the  marriage  should  take  place  there.  There 
is  evidence  that  the  idea  of  seizing  on  this  occasion  to  cut  off 
some  of  the  Huguenot  leaders  was  not  new  to  the  Queen's 
mind.  It  is  impossible  to  trace  out  the  sinuosities  of  a  nature 
so  made  up  of  deceit.^  She  was  fully  capable  of  weaving  two 
schemes  simultaneously,  and  of  availing  herself  of  either  as 
circumstances  might  dictate.  At  all  events,  the  failure  in  the 
first  attempt  upon  Coligny  moved  her  and  her  confederates  to 
undertake  a  general  massacre.  Henry  IH.,  who  was  one  of 
them,  asserted  that  the  King  himself,  when  he  had  been  pre- 
vailed upon  to  acquiesce  in  the  murder  of  Coligny,  demanded 
that  the  Huguenots  should  all  be  struck  down,  so  that  none 
should  be  left  to  cry  out  against  his  deed.  The  court  had  been 
absorbed  in  the  festivities  attending  the  marriage  of  Henry  of 
Navarre.  The  fanaticism  of  the  people  of  Paris  was  inflamed 
by  the  presence  of  the  Protestants  among  them,  and  efforts 
were  necessary  to  prevent  outbreakings  of  violence.  It  was 
only  necessary  to  unchain  the  passions  of  the  Catholic  populace, 
and  the  work  of  death  could  be  done.  The  feeble,  impulsive, 
impetuous,  half-distracted  King  was  assured  that  a  plot,  with 
Coligny  at  its  head,  had  been  formed  against  him,  and  was 
plied  with  entreaties,  arguments,  threats,  until  his  opposition 
was  broken  down,  and  he  yielded  himself  as  a  passive  instru- 
ment into  the  hands  of  the  conspirators.^    In  the  night  of  the 

*  "Cette  femme  ^tait  le  mensonge  meme  et  Ton  se  perd  dans  I'abtme  de  sa 
fausset^."  Henri  Martin,  ix.  291.  Michelet,  in  the  course  of  his  eloquent  nar- 
rative of  the  St.  Bartholomew  plot,  says  of  Catharine:  "Elle  6tait  double  et 
fausse  avec  tous,  avee  elle-meme."     Guerres  de  Religion,  p.  399. 

-  On  the  much  controverted  question,  whether  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew was  premeditated,  two  of  the  ablest  modern  historians,  Ranke  and  Henri 
Martin,  are  substantially  agreed.  The  material  points  of  their  view  are  indi- 
cated above.  See  Ranke,  i.  212  seq.,  and  his  examination  (v.  97  seq.)  of  the 
work  of  Capefigue :  Histoire  de  la  Re  forme,  de  la  Ligue  et  de  Henry  IV.  Cape- 
figue  is  one  of  the  writers  who  would  make  the  massacre  spring  wholly  from  the 
infuriated  state  of  Catholic  feeling  in  Paris,  of  which  the  individuals  concerned 
in  it  were  the  mere  instruments.     Martin  (ix.  302)  considers  that  in  insisting  that 


238  THE  REFORMATION 

24th  of  August,  at  a  concerted  signal,  the  murderers  fell  upon 
the  victims,  the  destruction  of  the  most  eminent  of  whom  had 
been  previously  allotted  to  individuals,  the  Duke  of  Guise  hav- 
ing taken  it  in  charge  to  dispatch  Coligny.  An  indiscriminate 
slaughter  of  the  Huguenots  followed.  The  miserable  King  was 
seen  to  fire  upon  them  from  his  window.  Couriers  were  sent 
through  the  country,  and  in  the  other  towns  the  same  frightful 
scenes  were  enacted.  Not  less  than  two  thousand  were  killed 
in  Paris,  and  as  many  as  twenty  thousand  in  the  rest  of  France. 
Navarre  and  Conde  were  at  length  obliged  to  conform  to  the 
CathoHc  Church,  to  save  their  hves.  The  news  of  the  great 
massacre  excited  a  tumult  of  joy  at  Madrid  and  at  Rome.  It 
is  said  that  Philip  II.,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  laughed 
aloud.  The  Pope  ordered  a  Te  Deum,  and  by  processions  and 
jubilant  thanksgivings  the  Papal  court  signified  the  satisfaction 
with  which  the  intelligence  was  received.  A  medal  was  struck 
having  on  one  side  the  image  of  Gregory  XIII.,  and  on  the 
other,  the  destroying  angel,  with  the  words,  Hugonotorum 
strages  (massacre  of  the  Huguenots).  The  Pope  ordered  Vasari 
to  paint  and  hang  up  in  the  Vatican  a  picture  which  should 
represent  the  slaughter  of  the  Huguenots,  and  bear  the  inscrip- 
tion, " Pontifex  Colignii  necem  probat"  (the  Pope  approves  the 
slaying  of  Coligny).  Among  the  fictitious  apologies  which  the 
French  court  put  forth,  that  which  charged  upon  the  Hugue- 
nots a  plot  against  the  King  and  government  met  with  little, 
if  any,  credence.  Everywhere,  except  at  Madrid  and  Rome, 
in  the  Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant  nations,  the  atrocious 
crime  was  regarded  with  horror  and  with  detestation  of  its 
perpetrators. 

the  marriage  of  Navarre  should  be  at  Paris,  there  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Queen 
Mother  "sinon  un  projet,  au  moins,  vme  arriere-pensee  sinistre."  When  Catha- 
rine put  herself  openly  at  the  head  of  the  party  of  peace,  "la  vague  pens6e  qui 
avait  toujours  flott6  dans  son  esprit  se  fixe :  le  fantome  du  meurtre  prend  corps ; 
'elle  tient  conseil  de  se  d^faire  de  I'Amiral'  (Mem.  de  Tavannes,  p.  386)."  Mar- 
tin, p.  302.  Henry  III.'s  narrative  of  St.  Bartholomew  is  considered  genuine 
by  Martin  (p.  309,  n.).  Its  genuineness  is  doubted  by  Ranke.  The  view  of  Ranks 
and  Martin  as  to  the  origin  of  the  massacre,  not  in  a  plot  definitely  framed  long 
before,  but  in  the  terror  and  fanaticism  excited  by  the  failure  of  the  attempt  to  as- 
sassinate Coligny,  is  adopted  by  Soldan,  Frankreich  u.  die  Bartholomaus  Nacht; 
by  Henry  White,  in  his  truly  learned  as  well  as  readable  work  on  the  Civil  Wars, 
The  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  by  other  judicious  writers.  Browning,  in 
his  valuable  History  of  the  Huguenots  (ch.  xxvii.),  errs  in  attributing  to  Charles 
IX.  the  purpose  to  decoy  the  Huguenot  leaders  to  Paris  in  order  to  cut  them  off. 
See,  also,  Cambridge  Modern  History,  iii.  18  seq. 


THE   CATHOLIC   LEAGUE  239 

The  Protestants  were  not  subdued  by  the  terrible  loss  which 
they  had  suffered.  The  burning  wrath  which  it  excited  among 
them  was  a  new  source  of  strength.  Rochelle  still  held  out. 
Nor  did  the  Queen  Mother  desert  her  previous  path  or  show 
herself  disposed  to  a  close  alUance  with  Phihp.  She  even 
sought  to  keep  up  negotiations  for  the  marriage  of  Alengon 
with  Ehzabeth. 

A  new  turn  was  given  to  affairs  by  the  separation  of  the 
"Politiques,"  or  hberal  CathoHcs,  who  were  in  favor  of  tolera- 
tion, from  their  fanatical  brethren.  The  wisdom  and  necessity 
of  the  policy  which  L'Hospital  had  vainly  recommended,  were 
now  recognized  by  a  strong  party.  In  1574  the  wretched  life 
of  Charles  IX.  came  to  an  end.  His  brother  and  successor, 
Henry  III.,  the  favorite  of  his  mother,  and  most  fully  imbued 
with  her  ideas,  and  who  had  been  active  in  contriving  the  mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew,  was  wholly  incompetent  to  govern 
a  country  that  was  torn  by  religious  factions,  a  country  whose 
treasury  was  exhausted,  and  whose  people  were  clamorous  for 
deliverance  from  their  heavy  burdens  of  taxation,  at  the  same 
time  that  a  strong  party  was  demanding  radical  political  re- 
forms. The  King  endeavored  to  make  his  way  by  craft  and 
double  dealing,  but  lost  the  confidence  of  both  of  the  religious 
parties.  In  May,  1576,  he  made  his  peace  with  the  united 
Huguenots  and  Politiques,  giving  to  the  former  unrestricted 
religious  freedom,  with  the  exception  of  Paris,  and  an  equal 
eligibleness  to  all  offices  and  dignities. 

With  the  cooperation  of  Spain,  Henry  of  Guise  organized  the 
Catholic  League,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Catholic  religion 
and  for  the  extirpation  of  Protestantism.  The  Estates  at 
Blois  in  1576  demanded  that  there  should  be  but  one  religion 
in  the  kingdom.  The  unpopularity  of  Henry  among  the  ex- 
treme Catholics  was  not  only  owing  to  his  shuffling  course  on 
the  religious  question,  but  also  to  his  advancement  of  personal 
favorites  to  the  highest  offices,  and  his  subjection  to  their  influ- 
ence, in  disregard  of  the  claims  of  the  great  nobles.  The  League 
commenced  another  war,  the  sixth  in  the  series,  for  the  attain- 
ment of  their  ends,  and  drew  the  irresolute  and  helpless  King 
along  with  them.  The  result  was  the  securing  to  the  Hugue- 
nots of  what  had  been  granted  them  in  1576;  but  the  seventh 
war,  that  soon  followed,  ended  in  the  adoption  of  the  first  Edict 


240  THE  REFORMATION 

of  Toleration.  In  1584  the  Duke  of  Alengon,  who,  after  the 
accession  of  Henry  to  the  throne,  had  worn  the  title  of  the 
Duke  of  Anjou,  died.  Thus  Henry  of  Navarre  was  left  the  next 
heir  to  the  throne.  The  League,  with  Spain  and  Rome  at  its 
back,  resolved  that  he  should  never  wear  the  crown.  Sixtus  V., 
shortly  after  his  accession  to  the  Papal  chair,  issued  a  bull,  in 
which  the  two  Princes,  Navarre  and  Conde,  as  heretics,  and 
leaders  and  promoters  of  heresy,  were  declared  to  have  for- 
feited their  dignities  and  possessions,  including  all  title  to  the 
French  throne.  In  the  war  of  the  "three  Henries,"  as  it  was 
called,  Henry  of  Navarre  was  supported  by  England  and  by 
troops  from  Germany  and  Switzerland.  The  King,  on  his  re- 
turn to  Paris,  found  that  Henry  of  Guise  was  greeted  by  the 
multitude  as  the  hero  of  the  war.  The  attempt  of  the  King  to 
introduce  bodies  of  troops  devoted  to  himself  was  met  by  the 
erection  of  barricades  in  the  streets  of  the  city,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  make  a  humihating  appeal  to  Guise  to  quiet  the  dis- 
order. The  Assembly  of  the  States  General  at  Blois,  in  1588, 
brought  forward  projects  of  constitutional  reform  which  re- 
duced the  power  of  the  King  to  a  low  point.  His  mortification, 
resentment,  and  impatience  at  the  restrictions  laid  upon  him, 
had  now  reached  their  height.  He  caused  the  Duke  of  Guise 
to  be  assassinated  by  the  royal  bodyguards,  and  the  Duke's 
brother,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  to  be  dispatched  the  same  day. 
Henry  III.  had  now  brought  on  himself  the  implacable  hos- 
tility of  the  League.  The  fanatical  preachers  of  Paris  held 
him  up  to  the  execration  of  the  people.  The  doctors  of  the 
Sorbonne  hastened  to  declare  that  he  had  incurred  the  penalty 
of  excommunication,  and  that  his  subjects  were  of  right  ab- 
solved from  their  allegiance.  The  actual  excommunication 
from  the  Pope  followed.  It  was  fortunate  for  the  King  that 
there  was  an  army  of  Protestants  in  the  field,  under  Prince 
Henry  of  Navarre.  The  King  joined  himself  to  the  Prince. 
The  army,  made  strong  by  the  union  of  the  Huguenots  and  the 
Politiques  —  the  liberal  Catholics  who  were  still  loyal  to  the 
sovereign  —  drew  near  to  Paris.  It  was  thought  advisable  in 
the  city  to  set  a  watch  upon  the  Catholics  who  were  not  of  the 
League.  At  that  time,  when  the  royal  cause,  faithfully  sup- 
ported by  Navarre,  was  gaining  ground,  a  fanatical  priest, 
Clement  by  name,  made  his  way  into  the  camp  and  slew  the 
King  (1589). 


THE  THREE   HENRIES  241 

Henry  IV.  was  now  the  sovereign  of  France  by  right  of  in- 
heritance; but  he  had  been  declared  inehgible  by  the  Pope, 
and  he  had  his  kingdom  to  win.  The  League  were  disposed 
to  put  France  under  the  protection  of  Phihp  II.  The  Duke  of 
Mayenne,  the  brother  of  the  Guises  who  were  assassinated  by 
order  of  the  King,  was  at  the  head  of  the  government  which 
the  League  provisionally  established.  The  interests  of  Spain 
were  cared  for  by  the  ambassador,  Mendoza,  an  astute  di- 
plomatist, whom  Elizabeth  had  found  it  inconsistent  with  her 
safety  and  that  of  her  kingdom  to  suffer  to  remain  in  England. 
Philip  II.  aspired  to  unite  the  Catholic  nations  under  his  rule, 
and  the  League  were  so  lost  to  the  feeling  of  patriotism  as  to 
wish  him  success.  The  project  of  the  union  of  France  and 
Spain  failed  as  far  as  the  League  was  concerned,  only  by  the 
jealousy  of  the  Duke  of  Mayenne,  who  refused  to  consent  that 
his  nephew,  whom  it  was  proposed  to  marry  to  Philip's  daughter, 
should  wear  the  crown.  The  gallantry  of  Henry  of  Navarre 
was  conspicuously  displayed.  In  the  battle  of  Ivry,  on  the 
14th  of  March,  1590,  he  gained  a  brilliant  victory,  which  was 
chiefly  due  to  his  personal  valor.  The  strategy  of  Alexander  of 
Parma,  one  of  the  ablest  generals  of  the  age,  neutralized  his 
successes  until  that  commander  died.^  Besides  the  discord  in 
the  League,  which  has  been  noticed,  other  circumstances  grad- 
ually turned  to  the  advantage  of  Henry.  The  great  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  his  crushing  opposition  was  the  fact  that  he  was 
a  Protestant.  When  urged  to  become  a  Catholic,  immediately 
after  the  death  of  Henry  III.,  he  had  refused,  but  in  such  terms 
as  to  inspire  the  hope  that  he  might  ultimately  accede  to  the 
proposal.  The  portion  of  the  Catholic  body  that  had  given 
him  their  support  would  not  consent  to  the  elevation  of  a 
Protestant  to  the  throne.  It  was  not  personal  ambition  alone, 
nor  was  it  the  desire  of  repose  for  himself,  which  he  felt  after 
so  long  a  conflict;  it  was  the  opportunity  that  was  given  him 
to  restore  peace  to  France  that  at  length  moved  him  to  conform 
to  the  Catholic  Church.  It  had  been  urged  upon  him  that  the 
constitution  of  the  kingdom  was  such  that  he  was  morally  bound 
to  be  a  member  of  the  old  Church.     As  King,  he  believed  that 

'  See  the  remarks  of  Due  d'Aumale  on  Henry's  military  talents,  ii.  170.  The 
King  was  master  of  tactics,  but  not  a  strategist.  D'Aumale 's  work  is  specially 
instructive  in  reference  to  the  constitution  of  the  armies  and  the  military  events  in 
the  civil  wars. 


242  THE  REFORMATION 

he  could  shield  the  Huguenots  from  persecution,  as  well  as 
bring  to  an  end  the  terrible  calamities  under  which  France  was 
groaning.  As  long  as  he  remained  outside  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  he  could  not  win  the  cities  to  his  cause,  and  he  could 
not  hope  to  reign  by  the  aid  of  the  nobility  alone.  He  had  no 
doubt  that  salvation  was  possible  in  the  old  Church.  Sully, 
who  dwells  with  much  self-complacency  on  the  part  which  he 
took  in  leading  the  King  to  abjure  Protestantism,  assured  him 
that  it  was  not  a  change  of  religion ;  that  the  foundation  of  the 
two  systems  was  the  same.^  But  Du  Perron,  who  had  before 
returned  to  the  Catholic  Church,  and  whom  Henry  afterwards 
made  Bishop  of  Evreux,  had  at  least  an  equal  influence  in  per- 
suading the  King  to  follow  his  example.  Specific  articles  of 
faith  that  were  presented  to  him,  he  refused  to  sign.  But  he  went 
into  the  Church  of  St.  Denis  and  kneeling  before  the  Archbishop 
of  Bourges,  solemnly  declared  that  he  would  live  and  die  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  which  he  promised  to  protect  and  defend. 
As  he  had  not  really  altered  his  opinions,  the  step  that  he  took 
was  one  which  admits  of  no  moral  justification.  Beza,  who 
was  then  near  the  end  of  his  life,  wrote  to  him  a  pathetic  and 
solemn  warning  against  it.^  We  cannot  conceive  of  a  man  like 
Coligny  consenting  to  abjure  his  religious  profession  from  any 
consideration  of  expediency.  Men  of  the  highest  type  of  char- 
acter do  right  and  leave  consequences  to  Providence.  But 
Henry  had  been  reared  in  the  camp ;  he  had  neither  the  strength 
of  religious  convictions  nor  the  purity  of  life  which  answered 
to  the  standard  of  the  earnest  Huguenots.  Thus  his  faults 
palliate  the  guilt  of  an  act  which,  if  done  by  a  man  of  a  higher 
moral  tone,  would  have  been  attended  by  an  utter  ruin  of 
character.  The  nation  was  now  easily  won  to  his  cause.  It 
is  gratifying  to  find  the  most  eminent  of  the  recent  writers  on 
French  history  dissenting  from  the  popular  view  which  assumes 
that  it  was  demonstrably  impossible  for  Henry  to  attain  to  the 
throne  without  abandoning  his  faith.  The  same  writer  agrees 
with  distinguished  individuals  in  the  Catholic  Church,  who 
even  at  that  day  preferred  that  the  King  should  remain  an 
honest  Protestant  than  become  a  pretended  Catholic'    It  is 

*  Memoires,  b.  v. 

*  For  the  remonstrances  of  other  Protestants,  see  the  thorough  work  of  Stahelin, 
Der  Uebertritt  Konig  Heinrichs  des  Vierten  (Basel,  1862),  p.  640. 

*  Martin,  x.  329. 


THE   ABJURATION    OF    HENRY    IV.  243 

unquestionable,  however,  that  the  immediate  effect  was  to 
open  his  way  to  the  throne  and  to  put  an  end  to  the  horrors  of 
civil  war.  He  rode  into  Paris,  wearing  the  white  plume  which 
had  often  waved  in  the  thick  of  the  fight. 

The  abjuration  of  Henry  might  be  approved  by  a  Protestant 
like  Sully,  in  whom  religion  was  subordinate  to  politics;  but 
it  brought  consternation  and  grief  to  the  great  body  of  his 
faithful  Huguenot  adherents  who  had  stood  by  him  in  the 
darkest  hours,  and  who  now  saw  the  foundations,  on  which  they 
stood  as  a  party,  struck  from  under  their  feet.  It  is  remarkable 
that  he  retained,  to  so  great  an  extent,  the  affection  of  those 
who  most  deplored  his  change  of  religion.  His  captivating 
qualities  gave  him  an  almost  irresistible  ascendency  over  the 
hearts  of  men.  The  abjuration  of  Henry  was  not  the  only  evil 
which  the  Huguenots  were  destined  to  experience  as  a  conse- 
quence of  being  a  political  party.  Others,  especially  nobles, 
sought  and  found  personal  advancement  by  following  the  ex- 
ample of  their  chief.  The  leadership  of  the  Huguenot  party 
was  coveted  by  persons  more  eminent  for  their  rank  than  for 
their  devotion  to  religion.  The  continued  persecution,  of  which 
the  Huguenots  were  the  victims,  enabled  them  to  rally  and 
preserve  their  political  organization;  and  the  strength  which 
they  still  manifested  indirectly  aided  the  King  in  carrying  into 
effect  the  policy  of  peace  and  toleration.  He  aimed  to  mod- 
erate the  polemical  ardor  of  the  Huguenot  champions,  and  did 
not  conceal  his  satisfaction  when  his  old  friend,  Du  Plessis 
Mornay,  was  convicted,  in  a  disputation  with  Du  Perron,  at 
Fontainebleau,  of  having  unwittingly  used  inaccurate  citations 
from  the  ecclesiastical  writers,^ 

The  administration  of  Henry,  though  cut  short  by  the  dagger 
of  Ravaillac,  was  of  incalculable  advantage  to  France.  With 
the  assistance  of  the  astute  Sully,  he  reorganized  the  industry, 
and  restored  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  He  made  war  upon 
Spain,  and  in  the  treaty  of  Vervins  in  1598  he  recovered  the 
places  which  had  been  conquered  from  France,  both  by  Philip, 
and  by  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  The  Pope  was  compelled  to  con- 
clude peace,  and  to  annul  his  various  fulminations  against 
Henry,  while  the  latter  refused  to  make  any  declaration  except 

'  A  favorable  view  of  the  King's  policy  in  dealing  with  the  Huguenots  is  given 
by  Ranke,  ii.  74  seq. ;  a  less  favorable  view  by  Stahelin,  p.  627  seq. 


244  THE  REFORMATION 

that  he  had  returned  to  the  Cathohc  Church;  and  he  adhered 
to  his  promise  to  protect  both  religions.  The  idea  of  his  foreign 
policy,  which  was  that  of  weakening  the  power  of  Spain  and  of 
Hapsburg,  and  of  extending  the  boundaries  of  France,  was 
afterwards  taken  up  by  Richelieu,  and  fully  realized.  In  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  in  1598,  Henry  secured  to  the  Huguenots  that 
measure  of  religious  liberty,  and  the  guarantees  of  it,  for  which 
they  had  contended.  It  left  fortified  cities  in  their  hands,  thus 
perpetuating  the  existence  of  an  organized  power  within  the 
State;  but  this  was  a  necessity  of  the  times.  With  this  ex- 
ception, his  domestic  policy  involved  the  concentration  of  power 
in  the  monarch;  and  in  this  respect,  Richelieu  followed  in  his 
footsteps.  But  if  the  accession  of  Henry  IV.  brought  a  com- 
parative security  to  the  Calvinists  of  France,  this  was  the  limit 
of  its  advantage  to  them.  From  a  religious  body,  animated 
with  the  purpose  to  bring  the  whole  country  to  the  adoption 
of  their  principles,  they  were  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  de- 
fensive party,  confined  by  metes  and  bounds,  which  it  could  not 
overpass;  a  party  more  and  more  separated  from  the  Catholic 
population,  and  exposed,  besides,  to  the  evils  consequent  on 
keeping  up  a  political  and  military  organization.  From  this 
moment  Protestantism  in  France  ceased  to  grow. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  REFORMATION  IN  THE  NETHERLANDS 

The  Netherlands  formed  a  most  valuable  portion  of  the  in- 
herited dominions  of  Charles  V.  The  Dukes  of  Burgundy,  the 
descendants  of  King  John  of  France,  taking  advantage  of  the 
weakness  of  the  French  crown  and  of  the  wars  between  France 
and  England,  had  built  up  by  marriage,  purchase,  and  con- 
quest, or  by  more  culpable  means,  a  rich  and  powerful  dominion. 
The  Duchy  of  Burgundy  gradually  extended  its  confines,  until, 
in  the  reign  of  Charles  V.,  it  comprised  seventeen  provinces,  and 
was  nearly  coextensive  with  the  territory  included  in  the  pres- 
ent kingdoms  of  Holland  and  Belgium.  All  of  the  old  writers 
describe  in  glowing  language  the  unequaled  prosperity  and 
thrift  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  the  skill  and  intelligence  of 
the  people/  Agriculture,  manufactures,  and  commerce  were 
equally  flourishing  and  lucrative.  There  were  three  hundred 
and  fifty  cities,  some  of  them  the  largest  and  busiest  in  Europe. 
Antwerp,  with  a  population  of  one  hundred  thousand  inhabit- 
ants, at  a  time  when  London  had  only  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand,  was  the  resort  of  merchants  from  every  quarter,  and 
had  a  trade  surpassing  that  of  any  other  European  city.  The 
people  of  the  Netherlands  were  noted  not  less  for  their  ingenuity, 
shown  in  the  invention  of  machines  and  implements,  and  for 
their  proficiency  in  science  and  letters,  than  for  their  opulence 
and  enterprise.  It  was  their  boast  that  common  laborers,  even 
the  fishermen  who  dwelt  in  the  huts  of  Friesland,  could  read  and 
write,  and  discuss  the  interpretation  of  Scripture.  Local  self- 
government  existed   to   a  remarkable   extent   throughout   the 

'  Strada,  De  Bello-Belgico,  torn.  i.  For  a  description  of  the  state  of  the  Low 
Countries,  see  Hausser,  Gsch.  d.  Zeitalt.  d.  Ref.,  p.  328  seq.  Prescott,  Hist,  of  the 
Reign  of  Philip  II.,  b.  ii.  ch.  1 ;  Motley,  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  i.  81  seq.  Th. 
Juste,  Hist,  de  la  Revol.  des  Pays-Bas,  torn.  i.  1.  v.  Holzwarth,  Der  Abfall  d. 
Niederldnder  (3  vols.,  1866-72).  The  facts  are  drawn  from  Guicciardini,  BelgiccB 
Descriptio  (1652),  Strada,  Basnage,  Annales  des  Provinces-Unis  (1719),  and  other 
sources. 

245 


24G  THE   REFORMATION 

seventeen  provinces.  Each  had  its  own  chartered  rights, 
privileges,  and  inununities,  and  its  immemorial  customs,  which 
the  sovereign  was  bound  to  keep  inviolate.  The  people  loved 
their  freedom.  Charles  V.,  with  all  the  advantages  derived 
from  his  vast  power,  could  not  amalgamate  the  provinces,  or 
fuse  them  under  a  common  system,  and  was  obHged  to  satisfy 
himself  with  being  the  head  of  a  confederacy  of  Uttle  repubhcs. 
But  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  in  1548,  he  succeeded  in  legahzing 
the  separation  of  the  Netherlands  into  a  distinct,  united  portion 
of  the  Empire,  paying  its  own  tax,  in  a  gross  amount,  into  the 
treasury;  having  certain  special  rights  in  the  Diet;  entitled 
to  protection,  but  exempt  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  imperial 
judiciary,  to  which  other  parts  of  the  Empire  were  subject. 

In  such  a  population,  among  the  countrymen  of  Erasmus, 
where,  too,  in  previous  ages,  various  forms  of  innovation  and 
dissent  had  arisen,  the  doctrines  of  Luther  must  inevitably  find 
an  entrance.  They  were  brought  in  by  foreign  merchants, 
"together  with  whose  commodities,"  writes  the  old  Jesuit  his- 
torian, Strada,  ''this  plague  often  sails."  They  were  introduced 
with  the  German  and  Swiss  soldiers,  whom  Charles  V.  had  oc- 
casion to  bring  into  the  country.  Protestantism  was  also  trans- 
planted from  England  by  numerous  exiles  who  fled  from  the 
persecution  of  Mary,  The  contiguity  of  the  country  to  Germany 
and  France  provided  abundant  avenues  for  the  incoming  of 
the  new  opinions.  "Nor  chd  the  Rhine  from  Germany,  or  the 
Meuse  from  France,"  to  quote  the  regretful  language  of  Strada, 
"send  more  water  into  the  Low  Countries,  than  by  the  one  the 
contagion  of  Luther,  by  the  other  of  Calvin,  was  imported  into 
the  same  Belgic  provinces."  ^  The  spirit  and  occupations  of 
the  people,  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  country,  were  singu- 
larly propitious  for  the  spread  of  the  Protestant  movement. 
The  cities  of  Flanders  and  Brabant,  especially  Antwerp,  very 
early  furnished  professors  of  the  new  faith.  Charles  V.  issued, 
in  1521,  from  Worms,  an  edict,  the  first  of  a  series  of  barbarous 
enactments  or  "placards,"  for  the  extinguishing  of  heresy  in 
the  Netherlands;    and  it  did  not  remain  a  dead  letter.^    In 

'  Strada,  Stapleton's  translation  (1667),  p.  36.  On  the  causes  of  the  rapid 
spread  of  Protestantism  in  the  Low  Countries,  see  Th.  Juste,  i.  319,  320.  Juste 
is  a  moderate  Catholic,  and  writes  with  impartiality. 

^  The  main  parts  of  the  first  "Placard"  are  given  by  Brandt,  History  of  the 
Reformation  in  the  Low  Countries,  i.  42. 


THE   "PLACARDS"   OF   CHARLES   V.  247 

1523,  two  Augustinian  monks  were  burned  at  the  stake  in  Brus- 
sels. After  the  fire  was  kindled,  they  repeated  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  and  sang  the  Te  Deum  Landamus}  This  execution  drew 
from  Luther  an  inspiriting  letter  to  the  persecuted  Christians 
of  Holland  and  Brabant,  and  moved  him  to  write  the  stirring 
hymn,  —  beginning,  "  Ein  neues  Lied  wir  heben  an/'  —  of  which 
the  following  is  one  of  the  stanzas :  — 

"Quiet  their  ashes  will  not  lie : 
But  scattered  far  and  near, 
Stream,  dungeon,  bolt,  and  grave  defy, 
Their  foeman's  shame  and  fear. 
Those  whom  alive  the  tyrant's  wrongs 
To  silence  could  subdue. 
He  must,  when  dead,  let  sing  the  songs 
Wliich  in  all  languages  and  tongues. 
Resound  the  wide  world  through."* 

The  edicts  against  heresy  were  imperfectly  executed.  The 
Regent,  Margaret  of  Savoy,  was  lukewarm  in  the  business  of 
persecution;  and  her  successor,  Maria,  the  Emperor's  sister, 
the  widowed  Queen  of  Hungary,  was  still  more  leniently  dis- 
posed. The  Protestants  rapidly  increased  in  number.  Cal- 
vinism, from  the  influence  of  France,  and  of  Geneva  where  young 
men  were  sent  to  be  educated,  came  to  prevail  among  them. 
Anabaptists  and  other  fanatical  or  licentious  sectaries,  such  as 
appeared  elsewhere  in  the  wake  of  the  Reformation,  were 
numerous;  and  their  excesses  afforded  a  plausible  pretext  for 
violent  measures  of  repression  against  all  who  departed  from 
the  old  faith.^  In  1550  Charles  V.  issued  a  new  Placard,  in 
which  the  former  persecuting  edicts  were  confirmed,  and  in 
which  a  reference  was  made  to  Inquisitors  of  the  faith,  as  well 
as  to  the  ordinary  judges  of  the  bishops.     This  excited  great 

>  Ibid.,  p.  45. 

*  "Die  Aschen  will  nicht  lassen  ab, 

Sie  staubt  in  aller  Landen. 
Hie  hilft  kein  Bach,  Loch,  Grub  noch  Grab; 

Sie  macht  den  Feind  zu  Schanden 
Die  er  im  Leben  durch  den  Mord 

Zu  schweigen  hat  gedrungen. 
Die  muss  er  todt  an  allem  Ort 

Mit  aller  Stimm',  und  Zungen 
Gar  frohlich  lassen  singen."  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  2,  §  24. 
'  The  Anabaptist  offenses  against  decency  and  order  are  naturally  dwelt  upon 
by  writers  disposed  to  apologize  for  the  persecutions  in  the  Netherlands ;  as  Leo, 
Universal  Geschichte,  iii.  327  seq. ;  and  in  his  earlier  work,  Zwolf  Bucher  Nieder- 
landische  Geschichte.  But  the  facts  and  circumstances  are  also  faithfully  detailed 
by  Brandt  and  other  writers  whose  sympathies  are  on  the  other  side. 


248  THE  REFORMATION 

alarm,  since  the  Inquisition  was  an  object  of  extreme  aversion 
and  dread.  The  foreign  merchants  prepared  to  leave  Antwerp, 
prices  fell,  trade  was  to  a  great  extent  suspended;  and  such 
was  the  disaffection  excited,  that  the  Regent  Maria  interceded 
for  some  modification  of  the  obnoxious  decree.  Verbal  changes 
were  made,  but  the  fears  of  the  people  were  not  quieted;  and 
it  was  published  at  Antwerp  in  connection  with  a  protest  of 
the  magistrates  in  behalf  of  the  hberties  which  were  put  in  peril 
by  a  tribunal  of  the  character  threatened.  "And,"  says  the 
learned  Arminian  historian,  "as  this  affair  of  the  Inquisition 
and  the  oppression  from  Spain  prevailed  more  and  more,  all 
men  began  to  be  convinced  that  they  were  destined  to  perpetual 
slavery."  Although  there  was  much  persecution  in  the  Nether- 
lands during  the  long  reign  of  Charles,  yet  the  number  of  mar- 
tyrs could  not  have  been  so  great  as  fifty  thousand,  the  number 
mentioned  by  one  writer,  much  less  one  hundred  thousand, 
the  number  given  by  Grotius.^ 

In  1555  Charles  V.,  enfeebled  by  his  Hfelong  enemy,  the 
gout,  which  was  aggravated  by  reverses  of  fortune,  —  mindful 
too,  it  is  said,  of  a  former  saying  of  one  of  his  commanders, 
that  "between  the  business  of  Ufe,  and  the  day  of  death,  a  space 
ought  to  be  interposed,"  —  resigned  his  throne,  and  devolved 
upon  his  son,  Phihp  II.,  the  government  of  the  Netherlands, 
together  with  the  rest  of  his  wide  dominions  in  Spain,  Italy, 
and  the  New  World.  Political  and  religious  absolutism  was  the 
main  article  of  Philip's  creed.  His  ideas  were  few  in  number, 
but  he  clung  to  them  with  the  more  unyielding  tenacity.  The 
liberties  of  Spain  had  been  destroyed  at  the  beginning  of 
Charles's  reign ;  and  the  absolute  system  that  was  established 
there,  Philip  considered  the  only  true  or  tolerable  form  of  govern- 
ment. To  rule,  as  far  as  possible,  according  to  this  method, 
wherever  he  had  authority,  was  an  established  purpose  in  his 
mind.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  resolved  to  stand  forth  as  the 
champion  of  the  Roman  CathoHc  Church,  and  the  unrelenting 
foe  of  heresy,  wherever  he  could  reach  it.  The  Spanish  mon- 
archy had  worn  a  religious  character  from  the  days  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella.  Its  discoveries  and  conquests  in  the  New  World 
had  been  pushed  in  the  spirit  of  rehgious  propagandism.     The 

*  "Nam  post  carnificata  honainum  non  minus  centum  millia, "  etc.  — Annalcs 
et  Hist,  de  Rebus  Belg.,  1.  i.  p.  12. 


SPIRIT   AND   POLICY   OF   PHILIP   II.  249 

crusade  against  the  Moors  had  whetted  the  fanatical  zeal  against 
heresy.  In  Spain  the  Inquisition  was  an  essential  instrument 
of  the  civil  administration.  By  nature,  and  by  the  influence  of 
the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed,  PhiUp  was  the  im- 
placable enemy  of  religious  cUssent.  Moreover,  he  knew  that 
if  he  granted  liberty  of  conscience  in  one  part  of  his  dominions, 
he  might  have  to  meet  a  similar  demand  in  another  —  in  Spain 
itself.  The  counsels  of  his  father,  in  whom,  as  he  advanced  in 
years,  superstition  acquired  an  increasing  sway,  confirmed 
Philip  in  his  intolerant  bigotry.^  There  had  been  a  mutual 
love  between  Charles  and  the  people  of  the  Netherlands.  They 
were  proud  of  him  as  a  countryman,  and  his  affable  manners 
in  intercourse  with  them  kept  up  his  popularity.  His  persecu- 
tion of  the  Protestants  and  his  cruelty  after  the  suppression 
of  the  insurrection  at  Ghent,  did  not  suffice  to  alienate  the 
loyal  and  affectionate  regard  of  his  subjects.  But  PhiHp  was 
a  Spaniard,  and  showed  it  in  all  his  demeanor  towards  them. 
"He  spoke  seldom,  and  then  all  Spanish."  His  mingled  shy- 
ness and  arrogance  repelled  and  disgusted  them.  In  the  room 
of  cordially  meeting  their  expressions  of  enthusiasm,  he  seemed 
desirous  of  escaping  from  them.^ 

Among  this  wealthy,  spirited,  cultivated  people,  Philip 
seemed  inclined  to  introduce  his  despotic  system.  The  great 
nobles  of  the  country,  of  whom  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
the  Counts  Egmont  and  Horn  were  the  chief,  might  naturally 
expect  to  be  intrusted  with  the  principal  management  of  the 

*  The  bigotry  of  the  Emperor,  as  well  as  other  traits  which  he  manifested  after 
his  abdication,  are  set  forth  in  the  highly  interesting  work  of  Stirling,  The  Cloister 
Life  of  Charles  V.  The  other  writers  on  the  subject  are  Gachard,  Retraite  et  Mort 
de  Charles  Quint;  Mignet,  Charles  Quint,  son  Abdication,  son  Sejour  et  sa  Mort 
au  Monastere  de  Yuste.  These  authors  are  reviewed  by  Prescott,  History  of  Philip 
II.  (end  of  b.  i.)  ;  and  in  his  edition  of  Robertson's  History  of  Charles  V.,  iii.  327 
seq.,  in  connection  with  Prescott's  own  historical  essay  on  the  same  theme.  Of 
course  the  Emperor  never  made  the  remark  often  attributed  to  him,  that  he  had 
been  foolish  in  trying  to  produce  uniformity  of  opinion  between  sects,  when  he 
could  not  make  two  clocks  or  watches  accord.  Macaulay  traces  the  saying  to  a 
reflection  of  Strada,  who  observes  that  Charles  governed  the  wheels  of  clocks 
easier  than  fortune.  Pichot  traces  it  to  Van  Male,  Charles's  Latin  Secretary,  by 
whom  an  observation  of  Seneca,  respecting  the  disputes  of  philosophers,  is  bor- 
rowed and  applied  to  the  controversies  of  doctors.  Pichot,  Chronique  de  Charles 
Quint  (1854),  vol.  i.  p.  444.  The  Emperor's  expression  of  regret  that  he  had  not 
burned  Luther  at  Worms  shows  his  real  mind.  Juste,  i.  98,  Prescott's  Robert- 
son, iii.  482.  From  Yuste  he  addressed  to  the  Spanish  Inquisitors  and  to  Philip 
exhortations  to  cruelty.  Ibid.,  pp.  463,  464.  His  fanaticism  and  intolerance  ap- 
pear in  his  codicil,  in  his  injunctions  to  Philip. 

2  Juste,  i.  124. 


250  THE  REFORMATION 

government  under  the  King.  William,  though  born  of  Lutheran 
parents,  had  been  brought  up  from  his  boyhood  in  the  court  of 
Charles  V.,  and  was  a  Catholic  by  profession,  but  opposed  to 
persecution.  His  extraordinary  abihties  had  made  him  a  favor- 
ite of  the  Emperor,  who  gave  him  responsible  employments  and 
signified  his  particular  regard  by  leaning  upon  his  shoulder,  at 
the  ceremony  of  the  abdication,  and  by  selecting  him  to  convey 
the  imperial  crown  to  his  brother  Ferdinand.  Egmont,  with 
far  less  depth  of  sagacity  and  steadiness  of  character  than  Orange, 
was  a  nobleman  of  brilliant  courage  and  attractive  manners, 
and  had  won  high  fame  in  connection  with  the  victories  of  Grave- 
lines  and  St.  Quentin.  The  nobles,  both  these  and  others  of 
inferior  rank,  were  luxurious  in  their  style  of  living,  and  their 
lavish  expenditures  had  brought  on  many  of  them  heavy  burdens 
of  debt. 

Philip  did  not  select  his  Regent  from  the  aristocracy  of  the 
country,  nor  did  he  appoint  any  other  whom  the  nobles  would 
have  preferred;  but  he  appointed  to  this  office  Margaret  of 
Parma,  the  illegitimate  daughter  of  Charles  V.,  a  person  of  un- 
common talents  and  energy,  and  utterly  devoted  to  the  will  of 
her  brother.  She  was  accomplished  in  the  art  of  dissimulation 
and  double-dealing,  which  formed  an  essential  part  of  Philip's 
method  of  governing.  She  nourished  the  King's  jealousy  of 
Orange  and  Egmont.  In  the  first  act  of  selecting  a  Regent, 
Philip  showed  a  caution  that  partook  of  suspicion.  At  her  side 
he  placed,  as  her  principal  adviser,  Granvelle,  the  Bishop  of 
Arras.  His  father  was  of  humble  birth,  but  had  raised  himself 
to  an  important  station  under  the  Emperor,  by  whom  the  talents 
of  the  son  were  also  discerned.  Granvelle,  the  younger,  was  an 
able  and  accompHshed  man  and  well  acquainted  with  the  coun- 
try, but  servilely  devoted  to  the  King.  The  three  nobles  were 
placed  in  the  Council,  but  the  secret  directions  of  Phihp  to  the 
Regent  were  such  that  the  conduct  of  affairs  was  really  in  the 
hands  of  Granvelle  (1559). 

In  the  midst  of  the  murmurs  and  fears  which  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  government  excited,  the  attempt  was  made  to  retain 
in  the  Netherlands  several  regiments  of  Spanish  soldiers.  This 
measure  was  undertaken  when  there  was  no  sign  of  an  insurrec- 
tion. It  was  in  violation  of  the  ancient  rights  of  the  Provinces, 
and  imposed  a  burden  which  was  the  more  onerous,  since,  in 


THE   AGGRESSIONS   OF   PHILIP   11.  251 

the  previous  year,  there  had  been  universal  suffering  from  the 
scarcity  of  provisions.  Phihp  had  pledged  his  word,  on  leaving 
the  Netherlands,  that  the  troops  should  be  withdrawn  within 
four  months;  but  that  pledge  was  disregarded.  The  disaffec- 
tion increased  to  such  a  degree,  that  the  Regent  at  length  availed 
herself  of  a  convenient  pretext  for  sending  them  away.  Philip 
reluctantly  acquiesced  in  what  she  pronounced  an  absolute 
necessity  if  the  country  was  to  be  saved  from  insurrection. 

The  second  of  these  irritating  measures  was  the  creation  of  a 
large  number  of  new  bishoprics.  Whatever  plausible  reasons 
might  be  urged  in  favor  of  this  measure,  from  the  great  size  of 
the  existing  dioceses,  and  their  inconvenient  relations  to  the 
contiguous  German  bishoprics,  the  real  design  of  it  was  not  mis- 
understood.^ It  was  a  part  of  the  machinery  to  be  employed 
for  tightening  the  cords  of  Church  discipline,  and  for  the  exter- 
mination of  heresy.  The  new  bishops  were  to  be  clothed  with 
inquisitorial  powers.  The  creation  of  so  many  important  per- 
sonages, devoted,  of  course,  to  the  sovereign,  was  counted  a 
disadvantage  to  the  old  hereditary  aristocracy  of  the  country. 

The  two  measures  of  the  retention  of  the  troops,  and  the 
imposition  of  the  bishops  —  measures  having  an  ominous  rela- 
tion to  one  another  —  revealed  unmistakably  the  policy  of  PhiHp. 
The  apologists  of  the  King  charge  the  troubles  that  ensued  upon 
the  ambition  of  the  nobles,  especially  of  WilHam,  who,  it  is  said, 
wanted  to  govern  the  country  themselves,  and  did  all  they  could 
to  excite  disaffection.  It  may  be  granted  that  they  were  not 
free  from  the  influence  of  personal  motives,  and  chafed  under  the 
arrangements  which  deprived  them  of  their  natural  and  legiti- 
mate place  in  the  control  of  pubHc  affairs.  The  charge  that 
either  of  them  aimed  at  a  revolution  is  destitute  of  proof.  In 
the  midst  of  all  that  is  subject  to  controversy,  two  things  cannot 
reasonably  be  disputed.  One  is  that  foreign  domination,  that 
is,  the  rule  of  Spanish  officers,  and  the  presence  of  Spanish  sol- 
diery, were  as  hateful  to  the  Netherlanders  as  they  were  to  the 
Germans.  It  was  what  contributed  most  to  the  reaction  against 
Charles  V.,  after  the  Smalcaldic  war,  and  to  the  triumph  of 
Maurice.  The  other  fact  is,  that  persecution,  the  forcible  re- 
pression of  heresy,  after  the  manner  of  Spanish  Catholicism, 
was  repugnant  to  the  general  feeling  of  the  people  —  of  the 

'  Juste,  ii.  166,  279. 


252  THE  REFORMATION 

Catholic  population  —  of  the  Low  Countries.  There  was  an 
atmosphere  of  freedom,  and  a  state  of  public  opinion,  to  which 
the  poUcy  of  Phihp  was  thoroughly  opposed.  WilHam  after- 
wards declared  that,  while  hunting  in  company  with  Henry  II. 
of  France,  that  monarch  had  incautiously  revealed  to  him  the 
secret  designs  of  himself  and  Philip  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy 
in  their  dominions.  In  Phihp's  scheme  for  the  increase  of 
bishops,  and  in  his  detention  of  the  troops,  William  saw  the 
beginning  of  the  execution  of  the  plot;  and  he  determined,  he 
says,  that  he  would  do  what  he  could  to  rid  the  land  of  "the 
Spanish  vermin."  That  WilHam  looked  about  for  a  high  mat- 
rimonial connection,  does  not  indicate  any  deep-laid  plan  of 
unlawful  personal  advancement  nor  in  his  marriage  with  Anna, 
of  Saxony,  was  there  any  serious  attempt  to  mislead  Phihp  as 
to  the  religion  to  be  adopted  by  his  bride.^  Wilham  was  charged 
with  cherishing  MacchiavelHan  principles;  but  the  age  was 
Macchiavelhan,  and  he  does  not  appear  to  have  often  trans- 
gressed the  bounds  of  morality  in  the  use  of  that  profound 
sagacity  by  which  he  coped  with  unscrupulous  adversaries. 

Philip  renewed  the  persecuting  edicts  of  Charles  V.  It  was 
forbidden  to  print,  copy,  keep,  hide,  buy,  or  sell  any  writing  of 
Luther,  Zwingli,  (Ecolampadius,  Bucer,  Calvin,  or  of  any  other 
heretic;  to  break  or  to  injure  any  image  of  the  Virgin,  or  of  the 
Saints;  to  hold  or  to  attend  any  heretical  conventicle.  Lay- 
men were  prohibited  from  reading  the  Scriptures,  or  taking  part 
in  conferences  upon  disputed  points  of  doctrine.  Transgressors, 
in  case  they  should  recant,  were,  if  they  were  men,  to  be  be- 
headed ;  if  women,  to  be  buried  ahve.  If  obstinate,  they  were 
to  be  burnt  ahve,  and,  in  either  case,  their  property  was  to  be 
confiscated.  To  omit  to  inform  against  suspicious  persons,  to 
entertain,  lodge,  feed,  or  clothe  them,  was  to  be  guilty  of  heresy. 
Persons  who,  for  the  reason  that  they  were  suspected,  were  con- 
demned to  abjure  heresy,  were,  in  case  they  rendered  themselves 
again  suspicious,  to  be  dealt  with  as  heretics.  Every  accuser, 
in  case  of  conviction,  was  to  receive  a  large  share  of  the  confis- 
cated goods.  Judges  were  absolutely  forbidden  to  diminish 
in  any  way  the  prescribed  penalties.  Severe  penalties  were 
threatened  against  any  who  should  intercede  for  heretics  or  pre- 

'  Compare  Prescott,  i.  485,  with  Motley,  i.  300  seq.  William's  wife  was  to 
"live  catholically. " 


POPULAR   DISAFFECTION  253 

sent  a  petition  in  behalf  of  them.  To  carry  out  these  enact- 
ments, Charles  had  established  an  Inquisition,  which  was  not 
only  independent  of  the  clergy  of  the  country,  but  to  which  they 
were  all,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  answerable.  This  was 
not  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  but  it  was  sufficiently  rigorous  to 
lead  PhiUp  to  pronounce  it  more  pitiless  than  that  of  Spain.^ 
But,  terrible  as  the  Inquisition  in  the  Netherlands  was,  it  wanted 
some  of  the  barbarous  features  that  belonged  to  the  Holy  Office 
in  Spain.  It  was  said  by  Philip,  and  has  been  urged  by  his 
defenders  since,  that  the  persecuting  edicts  were  the  work  of 
Charles,  and  that  his  successor  simply  continued  them  in  opera- 
tion. This  statement  overlooks  the  circumstances  that  they  put 
the  authority  of  Charles,  popular  though  he  was,  to  a  severe 
test ;  that  they  were  not  systematically  enforced ;  that  the  cruel- 
ties inflicted  under  them  had  more  and  more  awakened  the  hos- 
tiUty  of  the  people  to  such  measures;  and  that  in  the  interval 
between  the  promulgation  of  them  by  Charles  and  the  renewal 
of  them  by  PhiUp,  the  new  opinions  had  gained  a  wider  accept- 
ance.^ 

As  the  Inquisition  proceeded  with  its  bloody  work,  the  indig- 
nation of  the  people  found  utterance  through  Orange  and 
Egmont,  who  remonstrated  against  the  cruelties  which  were 
inflicted,  and  complained  to  the  King  of  Granvelle,  on  whom 
they  laid  the  responsibility  of  everything  that  was  done. 

Granvelle  is  exculpated  by  Philip  from  all  responsibility  for 
the  introduction  of  the  new  bishops;  and  he  did  not  originate 
some  other  obnoxious  measures  which  were  laid  to  his  credit.^ 
His  impulses  were  not  cruel.     But  the  lords  were  not  out  of  the 

'  "Ce  qu'on  d^bite  sur  Tintention  du  Roi  d'^tablir  aux  Pays  Bas  I'inquisi- 
tion  d'Espagne,  est  ^galement  faux ;  jamais  le  cardinal  ne  lui  a  fait  cette  proposi- 
tion, ni  lui-meme  n'y  a  pens6.  D'ailleurs  I'inquisition  des  Pays-Bas  est  plus 
impitoyable  que  cells  d'Espagne."  —  Gachard,  Correspondence  de  Philippe  II.,  i. 
207. 

^  Orange  sets  forth  some  of  these  altered  circumstances  in  a  letter  to  the  Re- 
gent (January  24,  1566).  He  speaks  of  the  Placards  as  "quelquefois  limit^s  et 
non  ensuivis  k  la  rigeur,  mesme  en  temps  que  la  misere  universelle  n'estoit  si  aspre 
comme  maintenant  et  notre  peuple,  par  imitation  et  practicques  de  nos  voisins, 
non  tant  enclen  a  novellite,"  etc.  He  depicts  plainly  the  fatal  consequences 
that  will  result  from  perseverance  in  the  severe  policy  of  the  King.  Groen  Van 
Prinsterer,  Archives  de  la  Maison  d' Orange-Nassau,  tome  ii.  p.  19. 

^  The  points  on  which  Granvelle  was  erroneously  accused  are  presented  by 
Gachard,  Correspondence,  etc.,  i.  clxx.  seq.  (Preliminary  Rapport.)  One  of  the 
worst  things  that  Granvelle  did  was  to  recommend  the  kidnapping  of  William's 
son,  who  was  taken  from  Louvain,  where  he  was  studying,  and  carried  to  Spain. 
There  he  was  kept,  and  trained  up  in  the  Catholic  religion. 


254  THE  REFORMATION 

way  in  finding  in  him  the  embodiment  of  the  foreign  domina- 
tion which  was  striking  at  the  Hberties  of  the  country.  What- 
ever opinion  he  might  privately  hold  as  to  the  wisdom  of  some 
of  the  measm'es  of  Philip,  he  never  faltered  in  his  obedience. 
He  knew  no  higher  law  than  the  will  of  his  master.  The  new 
arrangement  of  dioceses  abridged  his  own  episcopal  power,  and 
would  naturally  be  unwelcome;  but  when  he  was  made  Arch- 
bishop of  Mechlin,  and  then,  at  the  intercession  of  the  Regent, 
received  from  Rome  the  cardinal's  hat,  the  personal  dislike  of 
the  lords  to  him  as  an  upstart,  and  their  patriotic  opposition 
to  the  policy  of  which  he  was  the  chief  executor,  reached  their 
climax.  The  effect  of  the  complaints  of  the  nobles  against  the 
Cardinal  was  to  kindle  in  Philip's  mind  an  inextinguishable 
hostility  to  them.^  At  length  the  Regent,  impatient  of  her 
dependent  position  with  reference  to  Granvelle,  and  wilHng  that 
he  should  bear  all  the  odium,  took  sides  against  him.  The  ex- 
citement became  so  formidable  that  PhiUp  found  a  pretext  for 
removing  him  from  the  country,  as  if  at  his  own  request;  but 
the  Inquisition  went  forward  with  even  greater  energy  in  the 
work  of  burning  and  burying  alive  its  victims.  It  even  put  to 
death  those  who  were  merely  suspected  of  harboring  heretical 
opinions.  The  great  lords,  who  on  the  departure  of  the  Cardi- 
nal had  returned  to  the  Council,  from  which  they  had  previously 
withdrawn,  felt  that  they  were  deemed  to  be  in  part  answerable 
for  the  incessant  murders  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  justice  and 
religion ;  and  when  Philip  determined  to  promulgate  the  decrees 
of  Trent,  the  Prince  of  Orange  broke  through  his  reserve  and 
startled  the  Council  by  a  bold  and  powerful  speech  upon  the 
unrighteous  and  dangerous  policy  which  the  government  was 
pursuing.  The  general  sense  of  the  country  recoiled  from  that 
strict  ecclesiastical  discipline,  which  the  reactionary  Catholic 
party  in  Europe  were  seeking  to  establish.  It  was  determined 
to  dispatch  Egmont  to  Madrid  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  King  to 
the  real  situation.  The  cordiality  with  which  he  was  received, 
and  the  honors  that  were  rendered  him  in  the  Spanish  court, 
made  him  satisfied  with  the  smooth  but  vague  and  unmeaning 
assurances  of  Philip.     Egmont  was  the  more  incensed,  when, 

'  In  the  letter  in  wliich  he  denied  the  truth  of  certain  allegations  against 
Granvelle,  he  asserts  that  this  minister  had  never  advised  him  to  pacify  the  coun- 
try by  cutting  off  a  half  dozen  heads;  but  Philip  adds  to  the  denial  "Quoique 
serait  peut-etre  pas  mal  de  recourir  k  ce  moyen. "     Gachard,  i.  207. 


THE   "COMPROMISE"  255 

after  his  return,  he  found  that  he  had  been  duped,  and  that  the 
old  edicts  were  to  be  sharply  enforced  without  a  jot  of  conces- 
sion/ The  announcement  that  the  persecution  was  to  go  on 
without  the  least  mitigation  filled  the  land  with  consternation. 
The  foreign  merchants  fled,  as  from  a  pestilence,  and  Antwerp, 
the  principal  mart,  was  silent.  The  irritation  of  the  people 
found  a  vent  in  a  multitude  of  angry  or  satirical  publications, 
which  no  vigilance  of  the  Inquisition  could  prevent  from  seeing 
the  light.' 

About  five  hundred  nobles,  to  whom  burghers  were  after- 
wards added,  united  in  an  agreement  called  the  Compromise,  by 
which  they  pledged  themselves  to  withstand  the  Spanish  tyranny, 
the  Inquisition  that  was  crushing  the  country,  and  every  violent 
act  which  should  be  undertaken  against  any  one  of  their  number. 
In  this  league  were  Count  Louis  of  Nassau,  a  man  of  high  courage, 
but  more  excitable  and  radical  than  his  brother;  the  accom- 
pHshed  St.  Aldegonde,  and  Brederode,  whose  character  was  less 
entitled  to  respect,  but  who  was  full  of  spirit  and  daring.  They 
contemplated  at  the  outset  only  legal  means  of  resistance.  But 
in  their  ranks  were  found  some  who  hoped  to  mend  their  for- 
tunes by  political  commotion.  The  great  nobles  stood  aloof 
from  the  association.  William  especially  was  wise  enough  to  per- 
ceive that  it  would  accomplish  nothing  effectual,  but  rather  imperil 
the  cause  which  all  had  at  heart.  The  members  resolved  on  a 
great  public  demonstration,  and  waited  on  the  Regent  in  a  body 
with  a  petition  that,  until  a  repeal  of  the  edicts  could  be  pro- 
cured, she  would  suspend  the  execution  of  them.  She  bridled 
her  indignation,  but  Barlaymont,  one  of  the  Council,  was  known 
to  have  styled  them  "a  band  of  beggars."  They  accepted  the 
title  and  adopted  the  beggar's  sack  and  bowl  for  their  symbols. 
Multitudes  of  people  began  now  to  assemble  all  over  the  open 
country,  for  the  purpose  of  listening  to  the  Calvinist  preachers 

*  The  cruel  orders  of  Philip  are  given  in  his  famous  dispatch  from  the  forest  of 
Segovia  (October  17,  1565).     Gaehard,  i.  exxix. 

^  Granvelle's  correspondence  bears  constant  witness  to  the  general  antipathy 
towards  the  Spaniards  —  "La  mauvaise  volont^  que  I'on  t6moigne  ici  univer- 
sellement  a  tous  les  Espagnols, "  as  he  styles  it,  in  one  place  {Pa-piers  d'Etat  du 
Cardinal  de  Granvelle,  tome  vii.  p.  52).  This  antipathy  he  attributes  to  the  in- 
dustry of  the  lords  in  propagating  calumnies  in  regard  to  the  intention  of  the 
King  to  bring  in  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  to  rule  there  as  he  ruled  in  Italy,  etc. 
Granvelle  recommends  the  bestowal  of  offices  and  distinctions  such  as  places  of 
trust  in  Italy,  upon  Netherlanders,  in  order  to  create  a  Spanish  feeling  among  the 
friends  of  persons  thus  honored,  and  among  aspirants  for  like  favors. 


256  THE  REFORMATION 

and  of  worshiping  according  to  their  own  preference.  From 
ten  to  twenty  thousand  persons  would  gather,  the  women  and 
children  being  placed  for  safety  in  the  center,  and  the  whole 
assembly  being  encircled  by  armed  men,  with  watchmen  sta- 
tioned to  give  warning  of  approaching  danger.  They  listened 
to  a  sermon,  sang  Psalms,  and  used  the  opportunity  to  perform 
the  rite  of  baptism,  or  the  marriage  service  where  it  was  desired. 
Orange  obtained  from  the  Regent  the  allowance  that  the  preach- 
ing in  the  country,  outside  of  the  cities,  should  not  be  disturbed. 
The  popular  movement  was  so  powerful  that  she  found  herself 
helpless  (1566). 

Philip  had  stubbornly  refused  to  comply  with  the  urgent 
requests  of  the  Regent  that  the  edicts  might  be  softened.  Two 
nobles,  Berghen  and  Montigny,  were  sent  to  represent  to  him 
the  condition  of  the  country,  and  the  extent  of  the  popular 
indignation.  The  King  at  length  recognized  the  perils  of  the 
situation,  and  wrote  to  the  Regent  that  the  Inquisition  might 
cease,  provided  the  new  bishops  were  suffered  to  exercise  their 
functions  freely  ;  that  he  was  disposed  to  moderate  the  Pla- 
cards, but  that  time  would  be  required  to  mature  the  measure; 
and  that  the  Regent  might  give,  not  only  the  Confederates, 
but  others  also,  an  assurance  of  pardon.  At  the  same  time,  on 
the  9th  of  August,  1566,  in  the  presence  of  a  notary,  and  before 
the  Duke  of  Alva  and  other  witnesses,  he  signed  a  secret  declara- 
tion that,  notwithstanding  the  assurance  given  to  the  Duchess 
of  Parma,  since  he  had  not  acted  in  this  matter  freely  and  spon- 
taneously, he  did  not  consider  himself  bound  by  that  promise, 
but  reserved  to  himself  the  right  to  punish  the  guilty  parties, 
and  especially  the  authors  and  fomenters  of  the  sedition.^  He 
wrote  also  to  the  Nuncio  of  the  Pope,  with  an  injunction  of 
secrecy,  an  expression  of  his  purpose  to  maintain  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  the  edicts  in  all  their  rigor.^  Philip  has  thus  left  be- 
hind him  the  documentary  proof  of  his  perfidy,  or  his  deliberate 
design  to  break  his  word  to  a  nation. 

While  the  country  was  thus  agitated,  in  the  summer  of  1566, 
there  burst  forth  the  storm  of  iconoclasm  that  swept  over  the 

•  Gachard,  i.  cxxxiii.  443. 

*  Ihid.,  422.  See,  also,  Motley,  i.  531.  The  Nuncio,  the  Archbishop  of  Sor- 
rento, had  been  sent  to  the  Netherlands  ostensibly  to  look  after  the  reformation 
of  the  clergy  ;  really,  as  the  secret  correspondence  shows,  in  reference  to  the  Inqui- 
sition and  the  extirpation  of  heresy. 


ICONOCLASM  257 

land,  destroying  the  paintings,  images,  and  other  symbols  and 
instruments  of  Catholic  worship,  from  those  which  adorned  the 
great  cathedral  of  Antwerp,  to  such  as  decorated  the  humblest 
chapels  and  convents.  In  Flanders  alone  more  than  four  hun- 
dred churches  were  sacked.  The  work  of  destruction  was 
accomplished  by  mobs  hastily  gathered,  and  was  one  fruit  of 
the  excitement  and  exasperation  provoked  by  the  terrible  per- 
secution. Magistrates  and  burghers,  whether  Catholic  or  Prot- 
estant, looked  on,  offering  no  resistance  to  the  progress  of  the 
tempest.  However  it  may  be  condemned,  it  was  not  exactly 
like  the  invasion  of  the  temples  of  one  religious  denomination 
by  another.  These  edifices  were  felt  to  belong  to  the  people  in 
common ;  all  had  some  right  in  them.  Calvinists  at  that  period 
habitually  looked  upon  the  use  of  images  in  worship,  and  upon 
the  mass,  as  forms  of  idolatry,  of  a  sin  explicitly  forbidden  in 
the  decalogue.  Similar  uprisings  of  the  populace  took  place  in 
France  and  in  Scotland,  and  from  the  same  causes.  The  Prot- 
estant ministers  and  the  Prince  of  Orange,  with  other  chiefs  of 
the  liberal  party,  generally  denounced  the  image  breaking.^  The 
effect  of  it  was  disastrous.  What  the  iconoclasts  considered  the 
destruction  of  the  implements  of  an  impious  idolatry,  the  Catho- 
lics abhorred  as  sacrilege.  The  patriotic  party  was  divided,  and 
besides  this  advantage  gained  by  the  government,  a  plausible 
pretext  was  afforded  for  the  most  sanguinary  retaliation.  The 
Regent  was  obliged,  however,  to  make  a  truce  with  the  Con- 
federacy of  nobles,  in  which  it  was  agreed  that  the  Inquisition 
should  be  given  up  and  liberty  allowed  to  the  new  doctrine, 
while  the  confederates  in  return,  as  long  as  the  promises  to  them 
should  be  kept,  were  to  abandon  their  association.  Orange 
undertook  to  quell  the  disturbances  in  Antwerp,  and  Egmont 
in  Flanders;  the  latter  manifesting  his  loyalty  to  Catholicism 
and  his  anger  at  the  iconoclasts  by  brutal  severities.  The 
Regent  exhibited  the  utmost  energy  in  repressing  disorder  and 
in  punishing  the  offenders.  Valenciennes,  which  endeavored  to 
stand  a  siege,  was  taken  and  heavily  punished.  Order  was 
everywhere  restored.     Orange  foresaw  what  course  Philip  would 

1  Motley,  i.  570.  Whether  the  popular  leaders  encouraged  the  image  break- 
ing or  not,  is  one  of  the  disputed  points.  That  they  did  is  maintained  by  Koch, 
U Titer suchung en  uber  die  Emporung  u.  den  Abfall  d.  Niederlande  von  Spanien  (1861), 
p.  115  seq.  Juste  (ii.  184)  holds  the  contrary  opinion.  Koch  writes  in  a  polemical, 
partisan  spirit,  but  some  of  his  criticisms  upon  Motley  are  worthy  of  attention.  See, 
also,  Cambridge  Modern  History,  iii.  208. 


258  THE  REFORMATION 

pursue.  He  would  not  take  the  oath  of  unUmited  obedience  to 
what  the  King  might  choose  to  command,  and  separating  re- 
gretfully from  Egmont  and  Horn,  who  had  more  confidence  in 
Philip,  he  retired  to  Dillenburg,  in  Nassau,  the  ancient  seat  of 
his  family.  From  the  moment  when  Philip  heard  the  news 
of  the  iconoclastic  disturbances,  he  had  no  thought  but  that 
of  armed  coercion  and  vengeance.  While  he  was  preparing  a 
military  force  so  strong  that  he  expected  to  cut  off  all  hope  of 
resistance,  he  veiled  his  designs  by  assurances  to  the  Regent 
and  to  the  Council  that  his  policy  was  to  be  one  of  mildness, 
clemency,  and  grace,  with  the  avoidance  of  all  harshness.^  It 
was  fortunate  that  there  was  one  man  whom  he  could  not 
deceive. 

Wliat  the  Regent  most  deprecated  was  the  sending  of  the 
Duke  of  Alva  to  the  Netherlands,  to  whom  she  had  a  strong 
personal  antipathy,  and  whose  coming,  as  she  knew,  would  imdo 
at  once  the  work  of  pacification,  which  she  considered  herself, 
through  her  resolute  proceedings,  to  have  nearly  accomplished. 
But  in  accordance  with  Alva's  advice,  Philip  had  resolved  on  a 
scheme  of  savage  repression  and  punishment,  and  Alva  was  the 
person  selected  to  carry  it  out.  His  reputation  was  very  high 
as  a  military  man,  although  his  talents  seem  not  to  have  fitted 
him  for  the  management  of  large  armies;  he  had  a  contracted, 
but  clear  and  crafty  intellect,  immeasurable  arrogance,  inflex- 
ible obstinacy,  and  a  heart  of  stone.  Conciliation  and  mercy 
were  terms  not  found  in  his  vocabulary.  His  theory,  like  that 
of  Philip,  was  that  the  great  lords  were  at  the  bottom  of  the 
disaffection  of  the  inferior  nobility,  and  that  these  in  turn  were 
the  movers  of  sedition  among  the  people.  Neither  the  King  nor 
his  General  could  comprehend  a  spontaneous,  common  senti- 
ment pervading  a  nation.  Alva  conceived  that  the  great  mis- 
take of  Charles  V.  had  been  in  sparing  the  captive  leaders  in  the 
Smalcaldic  war.  From  the  Emperor's  experience  he  derived  a 
conclusive  argument  against  every  policy  but  that  of  unrelent- 
ing severity  in  dealing  with  rebels  and  heretics.  Such  was  the 
man  who  was  chosen  to  settle  the  disturbances  in  the  Nether- 
lands. He  conducted  a  body  of  ten  thousand  Spanish  troops 
from  Italy  to  that  country.  As  his  course  lay  near  to  Geneva, 
Pope  Pius  V.  desired  him  to  turn  aside  and  exterminate  this 

>  Gachard,  i.  xlviii.  487,  488. 


THE   COMING   OF   ALVA  259 

"nest  of  devils  and  apostates."  But  he  declined  to  deviate 
from  his  chosen  route,  maintained  perfect  discipline  among  his 
soldiers  during  the  long  and  perilous  march,  and  even  gave  a  sort 
of  organization  to  the  hundreds  of  courtesans  who  followed  his 
army.  On  his  arrival,  he  endeavored  to  disarm  suspicion,  and 
gradually  made  known  the  extent  of  the  authority  committed 
to  him,  which  was  equivalent  to  that  of  a  dictator.  The  Regent 
found  herself  wholly  divested  of  real  power.  Egmont  and  Horn 
were  decoyed  to  Brussels  by  gracious  and  flattering  words,  and 
the^i  treacherously  arrested  and  cast  into  prison.  The  terrible 
tribunal  was  erected,  which  was  appropriately  named  by  the 
people,  "the  Council  of  Blood,"  and  the  work  of  death  began. 
Soon  the  prisons  were  crowded  with  inmates,  not  a  few  of  whom 
were  dragged  from  their  beds  at  midnight.  The  executioners 
were  busy  from  morning  till  evening.  Among  the  victims, 
the  rich  were  specially  numerous,  since  one  end  which  Alva  kept 
in  view  was  the  providing  of  a  revenue  for  his  master.  Every 
one  who  had  taken  part  in  the  petitions  against  the  new  bishop- 
rics or  the  Inquisition,  or  in  favor  of  softening  the  edicts  of  per- 
secution, was  declared  guilty  of  high  treason.  Every  nobleman 
who  had  been  concerned  in  presenting  the  petitions,  or  had  ap- 
proved of  them;  all  nobles  and  oflacers  who,  under  the  plea  of 
a  pressure  of  circumstances,  had  permitted  the  sermons;  every 
one  who  had  taken  part,  in  any  way,  in  the  heretical  mass  meet- 
ings, and  had  not  hindered  the  destruction  of  the  images;  all 
who  had  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  King  had  no  right  to 
take  from  the  provinces  their  liberty,  or  that  the  present  tri- 
bunal was  restricted  by  any  laws  or  privileges,  were  likewise 
made  guilty  of  treason.  Death  and  loss  of  property  were  the 
invariable  penalty.  In  three  months  eighteen  hundred  men 
were  sent  to  the  scaffold.  Persons  were  condemned  for  singing 
the  songs  of  the  Gueux,  or  for  attending  a  Calvinistic  burial 
years  before ;  one  for  saying  that  in  Spain,  also,  the  new  doctrine 
would  spread;  and  another  for  saying  that  one  must  obey  God 
rather  than  man.  Finally,  on  the  16th  of  February,  1568,  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Netherlands,  with  a  few  exceptions  that 
were  named,  were  actually  condemned  to  death  as  heretics ! 

Orange  was  active  in  devising  means  of  deliverance.  His 
brother,  Louis  of  Nassau,  entered  Friesland,  in  April,  1568,  at 
the  head  of  an  army,  and  gained  a  victory  over  the  forces  com- 


260  THE  REFORMATION 

manded  by  Count  Aremberg.  In  order  to  strike  terror  and  to 
secure  himself  in  the  rear,  Alva  hurried  through  the  process 
against  Egmont  and  Horn,  and  they  were  beheaded  in  the  great 
square  at  Brussels.  Alva  then  marched  against  the  army  of 
Louis,  which  he  defeated  and  dispersed.  He  succeeded,  also, 
by  avoiding  a  combat,  in  baffling  William,  whose  army  was 
composed  of  materials  that  could  not  be  long  kept  together. 
The  rule  of  Alva  was  the  more  firmly  established  by  the  unsuc- 
cessful attempts  to  overthrow  it,  and  he  pursued  for  several 
years  longer  his  murderous  work.  The  entire  number  of  judi- 
cial homicides  under  his  administration  he  himself  reckoned  at 
eighteen  thousand.  Multitudes  emigrated  from  the  country; 
manufactories  were  deserted,  and  business  was  paralyzed.  In 
1569  he  determined  to  put  in  operation  a  system  of  taxation 
that  should  fill  the  coffers  of  the  King.  He  ordained  that  an 
extraordinary  tax  should  be  levied  of  one  per  cent  on  property 
of  all  kinds;  and  that  a  permanent  tax  of  five  per  cent  should 
be  paid  on  every  sale  of  real  estate,  and  ten  per  cent  on  every 
sale  of  merchandise.  This  scheme,  as  ill  calculated  for  its  end 
as  it  was  barbarous  in  its  oppressiveness,  raised  such  a  storm  of 
opposition,  that  Alva  himself  was  moved  to  make  a  compro- 
mise, which  consisted  in  postponing  the  execution  of  it  for  two 
years.  His  enemies,  Granvelle  and  others,  were  continually 
laboring  to  undermine  the  King's  confidence  in  him,  and  not 
wholly  without  success.  In  1570  an  Act  of  amnesty  was  sol- 
emnly proclaimed  at  Antwerp,  which,  however,  left  the  old 
edicts  in  full  force,  and  only  ordained  that  those  against  whom 
nothing  was  to  be  charged  should  go  unpunished,  provided  within 
a  definite  time  they  should  penitently  sue  for  grace  and  obtain 
absolution  from  the  Church  !  The  spirit  of  resistance  had  been 
slowly  awakening,  and  it  gathered  strength  from  these  senseless 
proceedings.  When,  on  the  31st  of  July,  1571,  Alva  commanded 
that  the  taxes  should  be  levied  according  to  his  scheme,  the 
shops  were  closed,  and  the  people  of  all  the  provinces  assumed 
so  menacing  an  attitude  that  he  deemed  it  best  to  except  four 
articles  —  corn,  wine,  flesh,  and  beer  —  from  the  operation  of 
his  decree.  But  this  did  not  produce  the  desired  effect:  labor 
and  traffic  were  suspended.  Alva  was  deeply  incensed  and  ready 
to  set  the  hangman  at  work  again,  when  he  heard  of  the  capture 
of  Briel  by  the  "sea-beggars,"  as  they  were  called;   the  hardy 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   DUTCH    REPUBLIC  261 

inhabitants  of  the  coasts  of  Holland  and  Zealand,  who  had 
organized  themselves  into  predatory  bands  under  their  admiral, 
William  de  la  Mark.  The  Prince  of  Orange  was  unremitting  in 
his  exertions  to  raise  forces  capable  of  effecting  the  deliverance 
of  his  country.  Holland  and  Zealand  threw  off  the  yoke  of  Alva, 
and,  in  accordance  with  William's  suggestions,  adopted  a  free 
constitution.  By  the  estates  of  Holland,  William  was  recog- 
nized as  the  King's  Stadtholder,  the  show  of  a  connection  with 
Spain  being  not  yet  abandoned.  He  was  at  the  head  of  an  army 
with  every  hope  of  success,  when  the  news  of  the  slaughter  of 
St.  Bartholomew  and  of  the  death  of  Coligny,  which  cut  off  the 
expectation  of  aid  from  France,  disappointed  this  hope.  Mons, 
where  his  brother  was,  had  to  be  given  up,  and  the  army  melted 
away.  But  Alva  was  weary  of  his  office  and  began  to  be  sen- 
sible of  his  failure  to  effect  the  result  which  he  had  been  so  con- 
fident of  his  ability  to  secure.  The  boundless  hatred  of  the 
people  against  him  was  daily  manifest.  He  read  it  in  the  looks 
of  all  whom  he  met.  Philip,  though  slow  to  learn,  began  to  see 
that  his  hopes  had  not  been  fulfilled.  Alva  sought  and  obtained 
a  recall,  and,  at  the  end  of  the  year  1573,  left  the  Netherlands, 
never  to  return. 

From  the  capture  of  Briel  may  be  dated  the  commencement 
of  the  long  and  arduous  struggle  which  resulted  in  the  building 
up  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  and  the  ultimate  prostration  of  the 
power  of  Spain.  The  most  powerful  Empire  in  the  world  was  kept 
at  bay,  and  eventually  defeated  by  a  few  small  states  which  were 
goaded  to  resistance  by  unparalleled  cruelty,  and  inspired  with 
an  unexampled  degree  of  patriotic  self-sacrifice.  The  hero  of 
this  memorable  struggle  was  WiUiam  of  Orange.  Requesens, 
the  successor  of  Alva,  equaled  his  predecessor  in  miUtary  skill, 
and  was  even  more  dangerous,  in  consequence  of  his  conciliatory 
temper,  which  might  divide  and  deceive  his  antagonists.  A 
delusive  amnesty  was  more  to  be  dreaded  than  open  and  fierce 
hostility.  In  the  field  the  Spaniards  were  victorious.  In 
1574  Louis  of  Nassau  was  defeated  and  slain.  But  they  ex- 
perienced a  reverse  in  the  unsuccessful  siege  of  Leyden,  whose 
heroic  defense  is  one  of  the  most  notable  events  of  the  long  war. 
A  new  Protestant  state  was  growing  up  in  the  North,  under  the 
guidance  of  Orange;  and  all  negotiations  looking  to  peace  were 
fruitless,  since  Spain  refused  to  grant  toleration.     This  was  the 


262  THE  REFORMATION 

one  thing  which  Philip  would  not  yield.  He  could  not  consent 
to  rule  over  heretics.  In  the  South,  where  CathoUcism  pre- 
vailed, Requesens  was  more  successful.  But  the  death  of  this 
commander,  in  1576,  was  followed  by  a  frightful  revolt  of  his 
soldiers  in  the  various  cities  where  they  were  stationed;  and 
the  scenes  of  murder  and  pillage  that  attended  it,  which  were 
most  appalUng  in  populous  and  wealthy  Antwerp,  taught  the 
southern  provinces  what  they  had  to  dread  from  Spanish  domi- 
nation. The  nobles  of  Flanders  and  Brabant,  instead  of  seeking 
help  from  Phihp,  appUed  to  Orange  and  the  northern  provinces ; 
and  in  the  pacification  of  Ghent,  for  the  first  time,  the  Nether- 
lands were  united  in  an  agreement  to  expel  the  Spaniards  and 
to  maintain  religious  toleration.  Don  John,  of  Austria,  the 
successor  of  Requesens,  was  brought  to  the  point  of  issuing  an 
edict  which  conceded  the  points  contained  in  the  Ghent  pacifi- 
cation. The  rejection  of  these  terms  by  WiUiam  of  Orange 
has  been  considered,  by  his  adversaries,  proof  positive  that 
ambition,  not  patriotism,  was  his  ruling  motive.  But  the  con- 
cessions of  Don  John  involved  the  exclusion  of  the  pubUc 
profession  of  Protestantism  from  all  places  where  it  was  not 
established  at  the  date  of  the  pacification;  and,  consequently, 
the  banishment  from  their  homes  of  thousands  of  peaceful 
famiUes,  as  well  as  the  insecurity  of  the  provinces  where  Prot- 
estantism was  allowed  to  continue.  More  than  all,  William 
distrusted  the  sincerity  of  Spain,  and  his  suspicions,  which  had 
their  ground  in  former  experiences  of  false  deaUng,  were  strength- 
ened by  information  acquired  from  intercepted  letters.^  It  was 
too  late  for  a  reconcihation  with  Phihp.  But  the  Flemish  and 
Brabant  nobles  were  jealous  of  the  eminence  conceded  to  the 
Prince  of  Orange.  The  Union  was  weakened,  and  the  war 
broke  out  again,  in  which  the  troops  of  Don  John  gained  the 
victory.  But  the  same  year,  on  the  1st  of  October,  1578,  their 
leader  cUed,  wearied  with  the  difficulties  of  his  office,  and  dis- 
heartened by  the  treatment  which  he  had  received  at  the  hands 
of  Philip. 

Alexander  of  Parma,  perhaps  the  ablest  general  of  the  time, 
was  next  intrusted  with  the  reins  of  government.  Experience 
had  shown  the  patriotic  party  that  the  nobihty  of  the  southern 
provinces  were  not  to  be  relied  on,  and,  in  January,  1579,  there 

»  Motley,  iii.  106. 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   DUTCH   REPUBLIC  263 

was  formed,  in  the  North,  the  Utrecht  Union,  in  which  were 
combined  Holland,  Zealand,  and  five  other  provinces.  It  was 
a  confederacy  for  common  defense,  and  was  the  germ  of  the 
Dutch  RepubHc.  It  was  formed  "in  the  name  of  the  King"; 
but  two  years  afterwards  this  fiction  was  dropped,  and  indepen- 
dence declared.  In  March,  1580,  Philip  proclaimed  Wilham 
an  outlaw,  and  set  a  price  on  his  head.  Philip  taxed  him  with 
ingratitude  for  the  favors  which  had  been  bestowed  on  him  by 
Charles  V.,  charged  him  with  having  fomented  all  heresy  and 
sedition,  with  having  actively  countenanced  the  plundering  of 
the  churches  and  cloisters;  in  fine,  with  being  responsible  for 
all  the  miseries  of  the  country.  The  document  further  charged 
him  with  cherishing  jealousy  and  mistrust,  Hke  Cain  and  Judas, 
and  from  the  same  cause,  an  evil  conscience.  Any  one  who 
would  deliver  him,  dead  or  alive,  was  to  receive  twenty-five 
thousand  crowns,  to  have  pardon  for  all  offenses,  and,  in  case 
he  belonged  to  the  burgher  class,  to  be  elevated  to  the  rank 
of  a  nobleman.  In  response  to  these  accusations,  William  pub- 
Ushed  his  "Apology,"  or  defense.  He  counted  this  outlawry 
and  accumulation  of  charges  against  him,  as  the  greatest  honor, 
since  they  showed  that  he  had  done  all  in  his  power  to  establish 
the  freedom  of  a  noble  nation,  and  to  deliver  it  from  a  godless 
tyranny.  He  respected  Charles  V.,  but  the  favors  which  he 
had  received  from  the  Emperor  had  been  returned  in  full  meas- 
ure by  the  public  services  which  William  had  rendered  at  great 
cost.  To  the  unfounded  aspersions  of  a  personal  nature  which 
PhiHp  had  interwoven  with  his  indictment,  William  retorted 
with  accusations  equally  grave  against  the  private  life  of  the 
King :  Philip  had  stigmatized  him  as  a  foreigner,  because  he  hap- 
pened to  have  first  seen  the  hght  in  Germany ;  but  his  ancestors 
were  of  higher  rank  than  those  of  Philip,  and  had  held  power 
in  the  Netherlands  for  seven  generations:  Phihp  had  set  out 
to  trample  under  foot  the  rights  and  institutions  of  the  country : 
he  talked  only  of  unconditional  obedience,  as  if  the  people  of 
the  Netherlands  were  Neapolitans,  or  Milanese,  or  savage  In- 
dians :  the  Emperor  Charles  had  predicted  the  evils  that  would 
result  from  the  Spanish  pride  and  insolence  of  his  son;  but 
neither  the  admonition  of  so  great  a  father,  nor  justice,  nor  his 
oath,  could  change  his  nature,  or  curb  his  tyrannical  will :  he 
had  beaten  the  French  by  means  of  WilHam's  countrymen,  and 


264  THE   REFORMATION 

owed  the  treaty  of  peace,  in  good  part,  to  William  himself; 
but  so  far  was  PhiUp  from  feeling  any  emotion  of  gratitude,  that 
William,  to  his  amazement,  had  heard  from  the  Hps  of  Henry 
II.,  of  Alva's  secret  conferences  with  him  upon  the  extermina- 
tion of  all  Protestants,  in  both  countries:  Wilham,  since  his 
boyhood,  had  given  Uttle  attention  to  matters  of  faith,  and  of 
the  Church ;  but,  he  says,  from  his  compassion  for  the  victims 
of  the  Inquisition,  and  his  indignation  at  the  tyranny  practiced 
against  his  country,  he  had  resolved  to  exert  all  his  powers  to 
remove  the  Spaniards  out  of  it,  and  to  suppress  the  bloody 
tribunals:  he  had  never  approved  of  the  iconoclasm,  and 
similar  outbreakings  of  violence :  that  he  had  sufficient  reason 
for  flying  from  the  country,  was  fully  evinced  by  the  execution 
of  Egmont  and  Horn,  the  carrying  of  his  innocent  son,  who  was 
a  student  at  Louvain,  to  Spain,  by  PhiHp's  order,  the  confisca- 
tion of  his  property,  and  the  sentence  of  death  pronounced 
against  him.  Everywhere,  said  Wilham,  Philip  has  trodden 
under  foot  our  rights  and  broken  his  oath;  we  must,  therefore, 
rise  in  self-defense  against  him  and  repel  this  unparalleled 
tyranny:  as  for  mistrust,  Demosthenes  inculcated  that  as  the 
strongest  bulwark  against  tyranny;  and  yet  the  Macedonian 
Philip  was  a  feeble  novice  in  tyranny  compared  with  the  Span- 
ish Philip. 

There  is  no  reason  to  question  the  sincerity  of  WilUam's 
patriotism.^  His  indifference  respecting  the  controverted  ques- 
tions of  religion  was  broken  up  by  the  sight  of  the  atrocious 
cruelties  inflicted  by  the  Inquisition  upon  his  countrymen.  He 
examined  the  questions  at  issue,  and  practically,  as  well  as 
theoretically,  embraced  the  Protestant  faith.  It  is  no  reproach 
to  him  that  he  early  penetrated  the  character  of  the  gloomy  and 
perfidious  ruler  who  was  bent  on  enslaving  the  Netherlands 
to  himself  and  to  the  Pope ;  and  that  he  had  less  and  less  hope 
of  the  practicableness  of  procuring  any  amelioration  of  his 
policy.  But  Wilham,  in  the  incipient  stages  of  the  conflict, 
was  wisely  resolved  to  keep  within  the  limits  of  the  law,  and  to 
avoid  extreme  and  violent  measures,  so  long  as  this  moderation 
should  be  possible.^    If,  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  he  was  not 

'  Writers  who  would  make  ambition  the  moving  spring  of  his  character  do 
full  justice  to  his  high  intellectual  powers.  See,  for  example,  Bentivoglio,  DeWa 
Giierra  di  Fiandra,  i.  47,  iii.  132. 

^  Some  candid  historians,  as  Juste  and  Prescott,  find  a  disagreeable  Machia- 


ASSASSINATION   OF   WILLIAM  265 

free  from  ambition,  his  character  was  more  and  more  purified 
by  danger  and  suffering.  He  must  be  allowed  a  place  among 
patriots  like  Epaminondas  and  Washington,  and  he  deserves 
to  be  called  the  father  of  a  nation.  At  length,  after  six  ineffec- 
tual attempts  of  the  sort,  a  fanatical  CathoHc  succeeded,  on 
the  18th  of  July,  1584,  in  assassinating  William.  It  was  char- 
acteristic of  PhiUp  to  pay  grudgingly  to  the  heirs  of  the  murderer 
the  promised  reward. 

Upon  the  formation  of  the  Utrecht  Union,  the  greater  part 
of  the  CathoUc  provinces  in  the  South  entered  into  an  arrange- 
ment with  Parma.  Parma  granted  liberal  terms  to  the  cities 
which,  one  after  another,  fell  into  his  hands.  Antwerp  was 
promised  that  its  citadel  should  not  be  repaired ;  that  a  Spanish 
garrison  should  not  be  quartered  on  the  inhabitants.  On  this 
one  condition  the  King  insisted  that  the  Catholic  worship  should 
be  restored,  and  Protestantism  be  aboHshed.  The  utmost  that  he 
could  be  persuaded  to  grant  was  that  two  years  should  be  allowed 
the  inhabitants  of  every  place  either  to  become  Catholic  or  to  quit 
the  country.     Brabant  and  Flanders  were  recovered  to  Spain. 

The  archives  of  Simancas  have  disclosed  the  fact,  which  was 
not  known  to  Parma  himself,  in  consequence  of  his  death  before 
the  execution  of  the  design,  that  Philip  was  on  the  point  of 
removing  him  from  his  command.  Instigated,  perhaps,  by 
jealousy,  on  the  alleged  ground  that  Parma  had  given  too  little 
authority  to  Spaniards,  and  for  other  reasons  of  even  less  weight, 
PhiHp  had  actually  determined  to  displace  the  general  who 
had  reconquered  for  him  the  southern  provinces  of  the  Nether- 
lands, and  twice  carried  his  victorious  arms  into  France,  forcing 
Henry  IV.  to  raise  the  siege  of  Paris  and  of  Rouen.  The  King 
did  not  shrink  from  the  ingratitude  involved  in  such  an  act, 
and  from  the  indignant  condemnation  which  the  public  opinion 
of  Europe  would  have  pronounced  upon  it.*  It  was  character- 
istic of  Philip  to  seek  the  accomplishment  of  his  ends  by  in- 
direction and  falsehood. 

vellian  element  in  the  shrewdness  and  reserve  of  William.  To  others,  this  quality 
does  not  pass  the  bounds  of  a  statesmanlike  sagacity  and  a  justifiable  prudence. 
Goethe,  in  his  play  of  "  Egmont,"  makes  the  Regent  say  of  him  :  "  Oranien  sinnt 
nichts  Gutes,  seine  Gedanken  reichen  in  die  Feme,  er  ist  heimlich,"  etc.;  and 
Orange  says  to  Egmont :  "  Ich  trage  viele  Jahre  her  alle  Verhaltnisse  am  Herzen, 
Ich  stehe  immer  wie  iiber  einem  Schachspiele  und  halte  keinen  Zug  des  Gegners 
fiir  unbedeutend."  Regarding  his  life  and  character  see,  also,  Ruth  Putnam, 
William  the  Silent  (1895);  and  George  Edmundson,  Cambridge  Modern  History, 
iii.   190-259.  i  Gaehard,  ii.  Ixxxi. 


266  THE  REFORMATION 

The  death  of  William  did  not  destroy  the  Republic  which 
he  had  called  into  being.  In  Maurice,  his  second  son  —  for 
his  eldest  son  was  detained  in  Spain  and  brought  up  to  serve 
the  Spanish  government  —  the  party  of  hberty  found  a  head 
who  was  possessed  of  distinguished  miUtary  ability.  The  new 
commonwealth  grew  in  power.  The  Dutch  sailors  captured 
the  vessels  of  Spain  on  every  sea  where  they  appeared,  and 
attacked  her  remotest  colonies.  The  magnificent  schemes  of 
PhiUp  were  doomed  to  an  ignominious  failure.  His  despotic 
system  had  full  sway  in  Spain,  but  it  brought  ruin  upon  the 
country.  His  colossal  armada,  which  was  slowly  prepared  at 
enormous  cost,  for  the  conquest  of  England,  was  shattered  in 
pieces.  He  had  planned  to  turn  France  into  a  Spanish  prov- 
ince, but  he  was  forced  to  conclude  the  peace  of  Vervins  with 
Henry  IV.,  and  thereby  to  concede  the  superiority  of  the  French 
power.  Under  Phihp  III.,  his  imbecile  successor,  Spain  was 
driven  to  conclude  a  truce  of  twelve  years  with  the  revolted 
Netherlands;  and  finally,  in  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  was 
obUged  to  acknowledge  their  independence. 

The  absorbing  interest  of  the  great  struggle  with  Spain  leaves 
in  the  background  the  distinctively  rehgious  and  theological 
side  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Netherlands.  Anabaptists  were 
numerous,  but  their  wild  and  disorganizing  theories  received 
a  check  through  the  influence  of  Menno,  who,  after  the  year 
1536,  exerted  a  wholesome  influence  among  them,  organizing 
churches  which  he  taught  and  regulated  for  many  years.  The 
Mennonites  were  free  from  the  licentious  and  revolutionary 
principles  which  had  covered  the  name  of  Anabaptist  with  re- 
proach.* Apart  from  their  peculiarity  respecting  baptism,  their 
rejection  of  oaths,  and  their  refusal  to  serve  in  war  and  in  civil 
offices,  together  with  the  ascetic  discipline  which  they  adopted 
—  a  point  on  which  they  became  divided  among  themselves  — 
they  were  not  distinguished  from  ordinary  Protestants.  Yet 
they  continued  to  be  confounded  with  the  fanatical  Anabaptists, 
and  were  objects  of  a  ferocious  persecution,  which  they  endured 
with  heroic  patience.  The  Calvinists  gradually  obtained  a 
decided  preponderance  over  the  Lutherans.  In  1561  Guido  de 
Bres  and  a  few  other  ministers  composed  the  "Confessio  Bel- 

1  See  the  articles  on  Menno  and  the  Mennonites,  by  Cramer,  in  Hauck,  Real- 
encyklopddie,  xii.  594  seq. 


RELIGIOUS   PARTIES  267 

gica,"  which  was  revised  and  adopted  by  a  Synod  at  Antwerp 
in  1566.  Tliis  creed  differs  from  the  "Confessio  Gallica"  chiefly 
in  its  more  full  exposition  of  Baptism,  with  special  reference  to 
the  Anabaptist  opinions.  The  Anabaptists  are  expressly  con- 
demned in  another  Article.  The  Calvinists  sent  a  copy  of  their 
Symbol,  with  a  Letter  to  the  King  of  Spain,  in  the  vain  hope  to 
soften  his  animosity  against  them.  They  say  in  their  Letter 
that  "they  were  never  found  in  arms  or  plotting  against  their 
sovereign;  that  the  excommunications,  imprisonments,  banish- 
ments, racks,  and  tortures,  and  other  numberless  oppressions 
which  they  had  undergone,  plainly  demonstrate  that  their 
desires  and  opinions  are  not  carnal;"  "but  that  having  the 
fear  of  God  before  their  eyes,  and  being  terrified  by  the  threaten- 
ing of  Christ,  who  had  declared  in  the  Gospel  that  he  would 
deny  them  before  God  the  Father,  in  case  they  denied  him  be- 
fore men,  they  therefore  offered  their  backs  to  stripes,  their 
tongues  to  knives,  their  mouths  to  gags,  and  their  whole  bodies 
to  the  fire."  ' 

Yet  the  Calvinists  of  the  Netherlands,  notwithstanding  their 
own  dreadful  sufferings,  did  not  themselves  relinquish  the  dogma 
that  heres)''  may  be  suppressed  by  the  magistrate.  Their  differ- 
ence from  their  opponents  was  not  on  the  question  whether 
heresy  is  to  be  punished,  but  how  heresy  is  to  be  defined.  This 
dogma  they  introduce  into  the  Belgic  Confession,^  and  into 
their  Letter  to  the  King.  They  were  disposed,  where  they  had 
the  power,  to  inflict  disabilities  and  penalties  on  the  Anabap- 
tists, even  when  they  were  peaceful  subjects.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  at  the  very  time  when  PhiHp's  agents  were  doing 
their  terrible  work  in  the  Netherlands,  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  likewise  striving  to  enforce  uniformity  in  Protestant 
England.  With  one  hand  she  helped  the  Calvinistic  subjects 
of  PhiUp;  with  the  other  she  thrust  her  own  Puritan  subjects 
into  loathsome  dungeons.  Not  that  Protestants  on  either  side 
of  the  sea  were  capable  of  the  atrocities  for  which  Philip  was 
responsible.  And  a  difference  of  degree  in  the  exercise  of  the 
inhumanity,  which  was  the  fruit  of  a  false  principle,  is  a  cir- 
cumstance of  the  highest  importance.  But  the  principle  was 
at  the  root  the  same.  Hence  the  doctrine  of  rehgious  toleration, 
which  was  avowed  and  practiced  by  WilHam  of  Orange  and  a 

'  Brandt,  i.  158.  *  Art.  xxxvi.,  "De  Magistratu." 


268  THE   REFORMATION 

part  of  his  supporters,  is  the  more  honorable  to  them,  in  con- 
trast with  the  prevalent  intolerance  of  the  age.  As  early  as 
1566,  in  his  speech  before  the  Regent  and  the  Council,  William 
denounced  persecution  as  futile,  and  confirmed  his  assertion  by 
an  appeal  to  experience,  to  historical  examples,  ancient  and 
recent.  "Force,"  he  said,  "can  make  no  impression  on  the 
conscience."  He  compared  inquisitors  to  physicians  who,  in- 
stead of  using  mild  and  gentle  medicines,  are  "for  immediately 
burning  or  cutting  off  the  infected  part."  "This  is  the  nature 
of  heresy,"  he  added,  "if  it  rests,  it  rusts;  but  he  that  rubs  it, 
whets  it."  ^  At  a  later  time,  he  had  to  withstand  the  importuni- 
ties of  his  friends,  who  wished  to  use  force  against  the  Ana- 
baptists. St.  Aldegonde  reports  that  to  his  arguments  in  behalf 
of  such  a  measure,  his  illustrious  chief  "repUed  pretty  sharply  " 
that  the  affirmation  of  the  adherents  of  that  sect  might  take 
the  place  of  an  oath,  and  that  "we  ought  not  to  press  this  mat- 
ter further,  unless  we  would  own  at  the  same  time  that  the 
Papists  were  in  the  right  in  forcing  us  to  a  rehgion  that  was 
incompatible  with  our  consciences."  "And  upon  this  occasion," 
adds  St.  Aldegonde,  "he  commended  the  saying  of  a  monk  that 
was  here  not  long  since,  who,  upon  several  objections  brought 
against  his  religion,  answered:  'that  our  pot  had  not  been  so 
long  upon  the  fire  as  theirs,  whom  we  so  much  blamed;  but 
that  he  plainly  foresaw  that  in  the  course  of  a  pair  of  hundred 
years,  ecclesiastical  dominion  would  be  upon  an  equal  foot  in 
both  churches.'  "  St.  Aldegonde  himself  states  that  a  mul- 
titude of  nobles  and  of  common  people  kept  away  from  the 
Calvinistic  assemblies  from  the  fear  "of  a  new  tjrranny  and  yoke 
of  spiritual  dominion."  The  Germans,  especially,  he  says, 
join  the  heterodox  "because  they  dread  our  insufferable  rigid- 
ness."  ^  In  1578  the  National  Synod  of  all  the  reformed  churches 
sent  up  to  the  Council  a  petition  for  reUgious  toleration,  which 
they  desired  for  themselves  and  pledged  to  Roman  CathoUcs. 
"The  experience  of  past  years,"  says  the  Synod,  "had  taught 
them  that  by  reason  of  their  sins  they  could  not  all  be  reduced 
to  one  and  the  same  rehgion;"  and  that  without  mutual  tolera- 
tion, they  could  not  throw  off  the  Spanish  tyranny.^  They 
refer  to  the  rivers  of  blood  that  had  been  shed  in  France  to  no 
purpose,  in  the  effort  to  procure  unanimity  in  religion. 

»  Brandt,  i.  164.  2  Ibid.,  i.  333.  ^  Ibid.,  i.  340. 


CALVINISTS   AND   LIBERALS  269 

There  was  another  question  which  gave  rise  to  division  among 
the  reformed,  —  the  question  of  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the 
civil  authority.  The  Calvinists  insisted  on  their  principle  of 
the  autonomy  of  the  Church,  and  rejected  ecclesiastical  control 
on  the  part  of  the  State.  As  in  Geneva  and  in  Scotland,  they 
demanded  that  the  Church  should  be  not  separate,  but  distinct. 
On  the  contrary,  a  great  part  of  the  magistrates,  and  with  them 
an  influential  portion  of  the  laity,  especially  such  as  cared  little 
for  the  pecuUarities  of  Calvinism  as  distinguished  from  Luther- 
anism,  resisted  this  demand.  These  claimed  that  the  civil 
authority  should  have  power  in  the  appointment  of  ministers 
and  in  the  administration  of  Church  government.  In  1576, 
under  the  auspices  of  WilUam  of  Orange,  a  programme  of  forty 
ecclesiastical  laws  was  drawn  up,  in  conformity  with  this  prin- 
ciple.^ The  second  Synod  of  Dort,  in  1578,  endeavored  to 
realize  the  idea  of  ecclesiastical  autonomy,  through  a  system  of 
presbyteries  and  of  provincial  and  national  synods.  But  the 
result  of  the  strife  was  that  the  Church  was  Hmited  to  a  provin- 
cial organization,  the  provinces  being  subdivided  into  classes 
and  each  congregation  being  governed  according  to  the  Presby- 
terian order.  The  germs  of  the  Arminian  controversy  are 
obvious  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  party 
which  called  for  full  toleration,  and  were  impatient  of  strict 
creeds  and  a  rigid  discipHne,  contended,  also,  for  the  union  of 
Church  and  State.  The  Spanish  persecution  confirmed  the 
Liberals  in  the  fear  that  the  Church  would  subject  the  State  to 
an  ecclesiastical  tyranny;  it  confirmed  the  Calvinists  in  the 
fear  that  the  State  would  subject  the  Church  to  a  poUtical 
despotism. 

1  Ibid.,  i.  318. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  REFORMATION  IN   ENGLAND  AND   SCOTLAND 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  Lollards,  as  the  disciples 
of  WickHffe  were  called,  were  still  numerous  among  the  rustic 
population  of  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
We  have  records  of  the  recantation  of  some  and  the  burning 
of  other  adherents  of  this  sect  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign 
of  Henry  VIII  /  When  John  Knox  preached  in  the  north  of 
England  and  the  south  of  Scotland,  he  found  a  cordial  reception 
for  his  doctrine  in  districts  where  the  Lollards  Uved.  The 
revival  of  learning  had  also  prepared  a  very  cUfferent  class 
in  English  society  for  ecclesiastical  reform.  Linguistic  and 
patristic  studies  had  begun  to  flourish  under  the  influence  of 
Thomas  More,  Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  Warham,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  and  other  friends  of  Erasmus,  and  under  the 
personal  influence  of  Erasmus  himself.^  Wolsey,  whatever 
may  have  been  his  faults,  was  a  Hberal  patron  of  learning.  He 
obtained  leave  to  suppress  not  less  than  twenty  smaller  monas- 
teries, and  to  use  their  property  for  the  estabUshment  of  a  noble 
college,  Christ  Church,  at  Oxford,  and  of  another  college  as  a 
nursery  for  it,  at  Ipswich,  His  fall  from  power  prevented  the 
full  accompUshment  of  the  vast  educational  plans  which  form 
his  best  title  to  esteem.  Wolsey  was  disinchned  to  persecution, 
and  preferred  to  burn  heretical  books,  rather  than  heretics 
themselves.^  Most  of  the  friends  of  ''the  new  learning"  were 
disposed  to  remedy  ecclesiastical  abuses.*  The  writings  of 
Luther  early  found  approving  readers,  especially  among  the 

^  Burnet,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Church  of  England  (ed.  1825,  6 
vols.),  i.  37.     Hallam,  Const.  History  of  England,  ch.  ii. 

^  G.  Weber,  Geschichte  d.  Kirchenreformation  in  Grossbrittanien,  i.  140. 

'  Blunt,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  England  (from  1514  to  1547),  gives  an 
interesting  account,  and  presents  a  flattering  estimate  of  the  services  of  Wolsey. 

*  See  the  sketch  of  Colet 's  sermon  before  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury 
(1572)  in  Seebohm,  The  Oxford  Reformers  of  1408:  also  in  Blunt,  p.  10.  Milman, 
Annals  of  St.  Paid's,  ch.  vi.,  gives  an  interesting  sketch  of  Colet's  life. 

270 


PECULIARITY   OF   THE   ENGLISH   REFORMATION       271 

young  men  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  younger  generation 
of  Humanists  did  not  stop  at  the  point  reached  by  Colet  and 
More.  Tyndale  and  Frith,  both  of  whom  perished  as  mar- 
tyrs, and  their  associates,  read  the  German  books  with  avidity.* 
Tyndale's  version  of  the  New  Testament  was  circulated  in  spite 
of  the  efforts  of  the  government  to  suppress  it.^  It  was  im- 
possible that  the  ferment  that  existed  on  the  Continent  should 
fail  to  extend  itself  across  the  channel.  Yet  at  first  the  signs 
were  not  auspicious  for  the  new  doctrine.  King  Henry  VIII. 
appeared  in  the  Usts  as  an  antagonist  of  Luther,  and  received 
from  Leo  X.,  in  return  for  his  polemical  book  upon  the  Sacra- 
ments, the  title  of  ''Defender  of  the  Faith."  ^  Little  did  either 
of  them  imagine  that  the  same  monarch  would  shortly  strike 
one  of  the  heaviest  blows  at  the  Papal  dominion. 

The  pecuUarity  of  the  EngHsh  Reformation  lies,  not  in  the 
separation  of  a  pohtical  community  • —  in  this  case  a  powerful 
nation  —  from  the  papal  see ;  for  the  same  thing  took  place 
generally  where  the  Reformation  prevailed;  but  it  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  involved  immediately  so  Uttle  departure  from  the  dog- 
matic system  of  the  mediaeval  Church.  At  the  outset,  the  creed, 
and,  to  a  great  extent,  the  pohty  and  ritual,  of  the  Church  in 
England  remained  intact.  Thus  in  the  growth  of  the  EngUsh 
Reformation,  there  were  two  factors,  the  one,  in  a  sense,  po- 
litical; the  other,  doctrinal  or  reUgious.  These  two  agencies 
might  coalesce  or  might  clash  with  one  another.  They  could 
not  fail  to  act  upon  one  another  with  great  effect.  They  moved 
upon  different  Unes;  yet  there  were  certain  principal  ends, 
which,  from  the  beginning,  they  had  in  common. 

Owing  to  this  peculiarity,  the  leaders  of  EngUsh  Reform  on 
the  spiritual  side  did  not  play  the  prominent  part  which  was 
taken  by  the  Reformers  in  Scotland  and  on  the  Continent. 
In  other  countries  the  political  adherents  of  Protestantism  were 
auxiUaries  rather  than  principals.     The  foreground  was  occu- 

1  Frith  was  burned  at  Smithfield  in  1533.  Tyndale  was  strangled  and  burned 
near  Brussels,   in   1536. 

2  Erasmus,  in  a  letter  to  Luther,  speaks  of  the  warm  reception  of  his  writings 
in  England.  Erasmi  Opera,  iii.  445.  Warham,  in  a  letter  to  Wolsey,  under  date  of 
March  8,  1521,  reports  to  what  extent  Lutheran  books  had  found  readers  at  Ox- 
ford.    Blunt,  p.  74. 

^  This  title  was  intended  for  himself  personally,  but  was  retained  after  his 
breach  with  Rome,  and  transmitted  to  his  successors.  Lingard,  History  of  Eng- 
land, vi.  90,  n. 


272  THE   REFORMATION 

pied  by  men  like  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Knox.  In  England 
there  were  individuals  of  marked  learning,  energy,  and  courage ; 
but  to  a  considerable  extent  they  were  cast  into  the  shade  by 
the  controlling  position  which  was  assumed  by  rulers  and  states- 
men. The  EngUsh  Reformation,  instead  of  pursuing  its  course 
as  a  rehgious  and  intellectual  movement,  was  subject,  in  an 
important  degree,  to  the  disturbing  force  of  governmental 
authority,  of  worldly  policy.^ 

Henry  VIII.  had  been  married,  in  his  twelfth  year,  to  Catha- 
rine of  Aragon,  the  widow  of  his  deceased  brother  Arthur,  and 
the  aunt  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  A  dispensation  had  been 
obtained  soon  after  from  Pope  JuHus  II.,  marriage  with  a  de- 
ceased brother's  wife  being  contrary  to  the  canon  law.  Scruples 
had  been  entertained  early  by  some  in  regard  to  the  validity  of 
the  dispensation,  and,  consequently,  of  the  marriage.  Whether 
Henry  himself  shared  these  scruples  prior  to  his  acquaintance 
with  Anne  Boleyn,  it  may  not  be  easy  to  determine.  Nor  can 
we  say  how  far  his  disappointment  in  not  having  a  male  heir  to 
his  throne  may  have  prompted  him  to  seek  for  a  divorce.  It 
is  not  improbable  that  the  death  of  his  children  awoke  in  his 
mind  a  superstitious  feeling  respecting  the  lawfulness  of  his 
connection  with  Catharine.  Yet,  according  to  her  solemn 
testimony,  made  in  his  presence,  the  marriage  with  Arthur  had 
not  been  consummated;  and  if  so,  the  main  ground  of  these 
alleged  misgivings  and  of  the  appUcation  for  the  annulling  of 
the  marriage  had  no  reality.  His  application  to  Clement  VII. 
for  the  annulling  of  the  marriage,  was  founded  on  two  grounds : 
first,  that  it  is  not  competent  for  the  Pope  to  grant  a  dispensa- 
tion in  such  a  case;  and  secondly,  that  it  was  granted  on  the 
basis  of  erroneous  representations.  Henry's  passion  for  Anne 
Boleyn  made  the  delay  and  vacillation  of  Clement  in  regard  to 
the  divorce  the  more  unbearable.  The  Pope  might  naturally 
shrink  from  annulling  the  act  of  his  predecessor  by  a  decree 
which  would  involve,  at  the  same  time,  a  restriction  of  the  papal 
prerogative.  But  the  real  and  obvious  motive  of  his  procras- 
tinating and  evasive  conduct  was  his  reluctance  to  offend 
Charles  V.  This  temporizing  course  in  one  whose  exalted  office 
implied  a  proportionate  moral  independence  was  not  adapted 
to  increase  the  loyalty  of  the  King  or  of  his  people  to  the  Papacy. 

'  Macaulay,  Review  of  Hallam  (Essays,  i.  146). 


DIVORCE   OF   HENRY    VIII.  .  273 

By  the  advice  of  Cranmer,  Henry  laid  the  question  of  the 
vaUdity  of  the  dispensation  before  the  universities  of  Europe, 
resorting,  however,  to  the  use  of  bribery  abroad,  and  of 
menaces  at  home.  Meantime  he  proceeded  to  the  adoption 
of  measures  for  reducing  the  power  of  the  Pope  and  of  the  clergy 
in  England.  Jealousy  in  regard  to  the  wealth  and  the  usurpa- 
tions of  the  hierarchical  body,  wliich  had  long  been  a  growing 
feeUng,  enUsted  the  nation  in  these  bold  measures.  One 
sign  of  this  feeling  was  the  satisfaction  which  had  been  felt  at 
the  restraints  laid  upon  the  privilege  of  clerical  exemption 
from  responsibihty  to  the  civil  tribunals.  In  the  preceding 
reign,  a  bishop  had  said  that  such  was  the  bias  of  a  London 
jury  against  the  clergy,  that  it  would  convict  Abel  of  the 
murder  of  Cain.  The  fall  of  Wolsey,  who  was  ruined  by  the 
failure  of  the  negotiations  with  Rome  for  the  divorce,  and  by 
the  enmity  of  Anne  Boleyn,  intimidated  the  whole  clerical 
body,  and  made  them  an  easy  prey  to  the  King's  rapacity. 
"The  authority  of  this  Cardinal,"  says  Hall,  the  old  chronicler, 
"set  the  clergie  in  such  a  pride  that  they  disdained  all  men, 
wherefore  when  he  was  fallen  they  followed  after."  ^  Early 
in  1531  Henry  revived  an  old  statute  of  Richard  II.,  and  ac- 
cused the  clergy  of  having  incurred  the  penalties  of  prcemunire 
—  forfeiture  of  all  movable  goods  and  imprisonment  at  dis- 
cretion —  for  submitting  to  Wolsey  in  his  character  of  papal 
legate.  Assembled  in  convocation,  they  were  obliged  to  implore 
his  pardon,  and  obtained  it  only  by  handing  over  a  large  sum 
of  money.  In  their  petition,  he  was  styled  "the  Protector  and 
Supreme  Head  of  the  Church  and  Clergy  of  England,"  to  which 
was  added,  after  long  debate,  the  quahfying  phrase,  "  as  far 
as  is  permitted  by  the  law  of  Christ."  Acts  of  Parhament  took 
away  the  first  fruits  from  the  Pope,  prohibited  appeals  from 
ecclesiastical  courts  to  Rome,  and,  after  the  consecration  of 
Cranmer,  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  ordained  that  hence- 
forward the  consecration  of  all  bishops  and  archbishops  should 
be  consummated  without  application  to  the  Pope.  Henry  was 
married  to  Anne  Boleyn  on  the  25th  of  March,  1533.  On  the 
14th  of  the  preceding  July,  at  Windsor,  for  the  last  time,  he  saw 
Catharine  who  had  been  his  faithful  wife  for  twenty-three  years. 
Eleven  weeks  after  the  marriage,  the  king  authorized  Cranmer 

»  p.    774. 


274  THE   REFORMATION 

to  decide  the  question  of  the  divorce  without  fear  or  favor! 
Of  course  the  divorce  was  decreed.  In  1534  the  King  was 
required  by  the  Pope  to  take  back  Catharine,  on  penalty  of  ex- 
communication. On  the  9th  of  June  of  that  year,  a  royal  edict, 
in  turn,  abolished  the  Pope's  authority  in  England.  Parlia- 
ment passed  the  act  of  supremacy,  "That  the  King,  our  sov- 
ereign lord,  his  heirs  and  successors,  kings  of  this  realm,  shall 
be  taken,  accepted,  and  reputed  the  only  supreme  head  in  earth 
of  the  Church  of  England,  called  the  AngUcana  Ecclesia."  This 
was  followed  by  another  great  measure  for  the  further  humbling 
of  ecclesiastical  power  —  the  aboHshing  of  the  cloisters  and 
the  confiscation  of  their  property  —  in  1536.  This  fell,  to  a 
great  extent,  into  the  hands  of  the  nobles  and  gentry,  and  had 
a  powerful  effect  in  Unking  them  to  the  poUcy  of  the  king. 
Subsequently,  the  larger  monasteries,  which  had  been  spared  at 
first,  shared  the  fate  of  the  inferior  establishments;  and,  by 
the  expulsion  of  the  mitered  abbots  from  the  upper  House,  the 
preponderance  of  power  was  left  with  the  secular  lords. 

Thus  the  kingdom  of  England  was  severed  from  the  Papacy, 
and  the  Church  of  England  brought  into  subjection  to  the  civil 
authority.  The  old  English  feeling  of  disHke  of  foreign  ecclesi- 
astical control  had  at  last  ripened  into  a  verification  of  the 
words  which  Shakespeare  puts  into  the  mouth  of  King  John, 
as  a  message  to  Pope  Innocent  III. :  — 

"Tell  him  this  tale ;   and  from  the  mouth  of  England, 
Add  this  much  more,  —  that  no  Italian  priest, 
Shall  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominions ; 
But  as  we  under  Heaven  are  supreme  head. 
So  under  him,  that  great  supremacy, 
Where  we  do  reign,  we  will  alone  uphold, 
Without  the  assistance  of  a  mortal  hand. 
So  tell  the  Pope  :  all  reverence  set  apart. 
To  him  and  his  usurped  authority."* 

There  had  been  no  renunciation  of  Cathohc  doctrines.  The 
hierarchy  still  existed  as  of  old,  but  with  the  King  in  the  room 
of  the  Pope,  as  its  earthly  head.  There  were  two  parties  side 
by  side  in  the  episcopal  offices  and  in  the  Council ;  one  of  them 
disposed  to  move  forward  to  other  changes  in  the  direction  of 
Protestantism;  the  other  bent  on  upholding  the  ancient  creed 
in  its  integrity.  The  Act  of  Supremacy,  as  far  as  it  had  the 
sympathy  of  the  people,  could  not  fail  to  shake  their  reverence 

»  King  John,  act  iii.,  sc.  i. 


THE   ACT   OF   SUPREMACY  275 

for  the  entire  system  of  which  the  Papacy  had  been  deemed 
an  essential  part,  and  to  inchne  many  to  substitute  the  author- 
ity of  the  Bible  for  that  of  the  Church ;  for  to  the  Bible  the  ap- 
peal had  been  made  in  the  matter  of  the  King's  divorce,  and 
the  Bible  and  the  constitution  of  the  primitive  Church  had  fur- 
nished the  grounds  for  the  overthrow  of  papal  supremacy.  At 
the  head  of  the  party  disposed  to  reform,  among  the  bishops, 
was  Cranmer,  who  had  spent  some  time  in  Germany,  and  had 
married  for  his  second  wife  a  niece  of  a  Lutheran  theologian, 
Osiander.  Cranmer  is  well  characterized  by  Ranke  as  "one 
of  those  natures  which  must  have  the  support  of  the  supreme 
authority,  in  order  to  carry  out  their  own  opinions  to  their 
consequences;  as  then  they  appear  enterprising  and  spirited, 
so  do  they  become  pHant  and  yielding,  when  this  favor  is  with- 
drawn from  them;  they  do  not  shine  by  reason  of  any  moral 
greatness,  but  they  are  well  adapted  to  save  a  cause  in  difficult 
circumstances  for  a  more  favorable  time."  ^  Latimer,  who 
became  Bishop  of  Worcester,  was  made  of  sterner  stuff.  Among 
the  other  bishops  of  Protestant  tendencies  was  Edward  Fox, 
who,  at  Smalcald,  had  declared  the  Pope  to  be  Antichrist.  The 
leader  of  the  Protestant  party  was  Thomas  Cromwell,  who  was 
made  the  King's  Vicegerent  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  who  had 
conducted  the  visitation  of  the  monasteries  which  preceded  the 
destruction  of  them,  and  was  an  adherent  of  the  reformed 
doctrine.  On  the  other  side  was  Gardiner,  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, who  upheld  the  King's  Supremacy,  but  was  an  unbend- 
ing advocate  of  the  Catholic  theology;  together  with  Tunstal 
of  Durham,  and  other  bishops. 

The  King  showed  himself,  at  first,  favorable  to  the  Protes- 
tant party.  The  English  Bible,  which  was  issued  under  his 
authority,  and  a  copy  of  which  was  to  be  placed  in  every  church, 
had  upon  the  title-page  the  inscription,  issuing  from  his  mouth : 
"Thy  word  is  a  lantern  unto  my  feet."  ^  In  1536  ten  articles 
were   laid   before   Convocation,    adopted   by   that   body,   and 

*  Englische  Geschichte,  i.  204.  A  severe,  not  to  say  harsh,  estimate  of  Cran- 
mer is  given  by  Macaulay,  Hist,  of  England,  i.  48 ;  Review  of  Hallam  (Essays, 
i.  448).  "If,"  says  Hallam,  "we  weigh  the  character  of  this  prelate  in  an  equal 
balance,  he  will  appear  far  indeed  removed  from  the  turpitude  imputed  to  him  by 
his  enemies;  yet  not  entitled  to  any  extraordinary  veneration."  Const.  Hist., 
eh.  ii.     A  good  recent  portrait  is  that  of  A.  F.  Pollard,  Thomas  Cranmer  (1904). 

2  On  the  English  versions  of  the  Bible,  see  Anderson,  Annals  of  the  Engl. 
Bible  (2  vols.  1845). 


276  THE    REFORMATION 

sent,  by  the  King's  order,  to  all  pastors  as  a  guide  for  their 
teaching.  The  Bible  and  the  three  ancient  creeds  were  made 
the  standard  of  doctrine.  Salvation  is  by  faith  and  without 
human  merits.  The  sacrament  of  the  altar  is  defined  in  terms 
to  which  Luther  would  not  have  objected.  The  use  of  images 
and  various  other  ceremonies,  auricular  confession,  and  the 
invocation  of  saints,  are  approved,  but  cautions  are  given  against 
abuses  connected  with  these  things.  The  admission  that  there 
is  a  Purgatory  is  coupled  with  the  denial  of  any  power  in  the 
Pope  to  deUver  souls  from  it,  and  with  the  rejection  of  other 
superstitions  connected  with  the  old  doctrine.  These  articles, 
unsatisfactory  as  they  were,  in  many  respects,  to  the  Protes- 
tants, were  still  regarded  by  them  as  a  long  step  in  the  right 
direction.  The  Cathohc  party  were  offended.  A  majority  of 
the  nation  still  clung  to  the  ancient  rehgion.  The  suppression 
and  spoliation  of  the  monasteries,  which  were  prized  as  dis- 
pensers of  hospitahty  and  sources  of  pecuniary  advantage  to 
the  rustic  population,  had  excited  much  cUscontent,  especially 
in  the  North  and  West,  where  the  CathoHcs  were  most  numerous. 
The  disaffection  which  was  heightened  by  the  leaning  of  the 
government  towards  Protestant  doctrine,  broke  out  in  the  rebel- 
lion of  1536,  which,  although  it  was  put  down  without  conces- 
sions to  the  promoters  of  it,  was  succeeded  by  a  change  in  the 
King's  ecclesiastical  poUcy.  The  CathoHc  faction  gained  the 
ascendency,  and,  nothwithstanding  the  opposition  of  Cranmer 
and  his  friends,  the  Six  Articles  for  "aboHshing  cUversity  of 
opinions"  in  rehgion,  were  framed  into  a  law.  These  decreed 
transubstantiation,  the  needlessness  of  communion  in  both 
kinds,  the  celibacy  of  the  priesthood,  the  obhgation  of  vows 
of  chastity,  the  necessity  and  value  of  private  masses  and  of 
auricular  confession.  Whoever  denied  transubstantiation  was  to 
be  burned  at  the  stake  as  a  heretic.  Whoever  should  pubUcly 
attack  either  of  the  other  articles  was  to  suffer  death  as  a  felon, 
without  benefit  of  clergy.  Imprisonment,  confiscation  of  goods, 
and  death  were  threatened  to  expressions  of  dissent  from  the 
last  five  of  the  articles,  according  to  its  form  and  degree.  The 
execution  of  Anne  Boleyn  and  the  marriage  of  the  King  to  Jane 
Seymour  (1536) ;  and  still  more  the  fall  of  Cromwell  (1540), 
the  great  support  of  the  Protestant  interest,  which  followed 
upon  the  marriage  of  Henry  to  a  Protestant  princess,  Anne  of 


HENRY'S   POLICY  277 

Cleves,  and  his  immediate  divorce,  increased  the  strength  of  the 
persecuting  faction.  Those  who  denied  the  King's  supremacy 
and  those  who  denied  transubstantiation  were  dragged  on  the 
same  hurdle  to  the  place  of  execution/  Earnest  bishops,  as 
Latimer  and  Shaxton,  were  imprisoned  in  the  Tower.  Cranmer 
was  protected  by  his  own  prudence  and  the  King's  favor.^ 

The  death  of  Henry  put  an  end  to  this  persecution.  He  had 
attempted  to  establish  an  Anglican  Church  which  should  be 
neither  Protestant  nor  Roman  CathoUc,  but  which  should  differ 
from  the  Roman  CathoUc  system  only  in  the  article  of  the  Royal 
Supremacy.  His  success  was  remarkable,  and  has  been  ascribed 
correctly  to  the  extraordinary  force  of  his  character,  the  advan- 
tageous position  of  England  with  reference  to  foreign  powers, 
the  enormous  wealth  which  the  confiscation  of  the  religious 
houses,  placed  at  his  disposal  and  the  support  of  the  neutral, 
undecided  class  who  embraced  neither  opinion.^  With  the 
death  of  Henry,  the  two  parties,  as  if  released  from  a  strong 
hand,  assumed  their  natural  antagonism.  The  government 
could  maintain  its  independence  of  the  Papacy  only  by  obtain- 
ing the  support  of  the  Protestants.  Henry,  with  the  assent  of 
Parhament,  had  determined  the  order  of  the  succession,  giving 

*  The  amount  of  persecution  under  the  Six  Articles  is  discussed  by  Maitland, 
Essays  on  the  Reformation  (London,  1846). 

^  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  at  length  the  personal  character  of  Henry 
VIII.  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  after  recounting  the  executions  of  More  and 
Anne,  says:  "In  these  two  direful  deeds  Henry  approached,  perhaps,  as  nearly 
to  the  ideal  standard  of  perfect  wickedness  as  the  infirmities  of  human  nature 
will  allow."  History  of  England,  ii.  ch.  vii.  Macaulay  pronounces  him  "a 
king  whose  character  may  be  best  described  by  saying  that  he  was  despotism 
itself  personified."  {Review  of  Hallarn.)  Burnet  gives  a  milder  judgment:  "I 
do  not  deny  that  he  is  to  be  numbered  among  the  ill  princes,  yet  I  cannot  rank 
him  with  the  worst."  Hist,  of  the  Ref.,  i.  p.  i.  b.  iii.  Lord  Herbert,  after  speak- 
ing of  his  willfulness  and  jealousy  says:  "These  conditions,  again  being  armed 
with  power,  produced  such  terrible  effects  as  styled  him,  abroad  and  at  home, 
by  the  name  of  cruel;  which  also  hardly  can  be  avoided."  Life  and  Reign  of 
Henry  VIII.,  p.  572.  Mr.  Froude,  in  his  History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  Wolsey 
to  the  Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  has  presented  a  brilliant  apology  for  Henry 
VIII.  But  he  fails  to  offer  any  adequate  defense  of  the  execution  of  More  and 
of  Fisher,  an  act  of  cruelty  that  at  the  time  was  reprobated  everywhere;  and 
still  less  for  the  destruction  of  Cromwell,  whom  Froude,  whether  justly  or  not, 
praises  up  to  the  very  foot  of  the  scaffold.  Even  if  Anne  Boleyn  be  supposed 
to  be  guilty  of  the  charges  brought  against  her,  there  was  a  brutality  in  the  cir- 
cumstances of  her  imprisonment  and  execution,  and  in  the  marriage  with  Jane 
Seymour  the  very  next  day,  which  it  is  impossible  to  excuse.  The  contempora- 
ries of  Henry  were  right  in  distinguishing  the  earlier  from  the  latter  portion  of 
his  reign.  After  the  fall  of  Wolsey,  he  became  more  and  more  willful,  suspicious, 
and  cruel. 

*  Macaulay,  History  of  England,  i.  46. 


278  THE   REFORMATION 

precedence  to  Edward,  his  son  by  Jane  Seymour,  over  the  two 
princesses,  Mary,  the  daughter  of  Catharine,  and  Elizabeth, 
the  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn.  Edward  VI.  was  less  than  ten 
years  old  at  his  accession  in  1547;  but  as  an  example  of  intel- 
lectual precocity  he  has  seldom,  if  ever,  been  surpassed.  He 
was  firmly  attached  to  the  Protestant  faith.  A  Regency  was 
estabUshed,  in  which  Somerset,  the  King's  uncle,  was  chief, 
and  at  the  head  of  a  Protestant  majority.  The  Six  Articles 
were  repealed.  It  was  the  period  of  the  Smalcaldic  war  and  of 
the  Interim  in  Germany,  and  the  hands  of  Cranmer  and  Ridley 
were  strengthened  by  theologians  from  the  Continent.  Peter 
Martyr  and  Ochino  were  made  professors  at  Oxford  in  1547 
and  Martin  Bucer  and  Paul  Fagius  were  called  to  Cambridge 
in  1549.  The  "Book  of  Homihes"  appeared  in  1547  —  exposi- 
tions of  Christian  doctrine  which  were  to  be  read  by  the  clergy 
in  their  churches  every  Sunday.  Communion  had  been  or- 
dered to  be  administered  in  both  kinds.  Transubstantiation 
was  now  formally  abandoned;  the  second  principal  step,  after 
the  declaration  of  the  Royal  Supremacy,  in  the  progress  of  the 
English  Reformation.  These  changes  gave  rise  to  a  new  "Order 
of  Communion";  but  the  latter  was  superseded,  in  1548,  by 
the  "First  Book  of  Common  Prayer."  This  was  commenced 
by  Cranmer  five  years  before,  with  the  consent  of  Henry,  and 
with  the  aid  of  other  divines  was  completed.  This  liturgy  did 
not  exclude  the  mass  without  ambiguity;  from  a  wish  to  avoid 
too  marked  traces  of  change  in  doctrine.  This  was  revised,  in 
1552,  in  Edward's  second  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  prepared 
by  Cranmer,  with  the  assistance  of  Ridley,  when  all  traces  of 
the  mass  were  effaced,  and  the  use  of  consecrated  oil,  prayers 
for  the  dead,  and  auricular  confession  were  abolished.  A 
second  Act  of  Uniformity  made  this  Book  the  one  legal  form  of 
worship.  In  1552  the  Articles  were  framed,  at  first  forty-two 
in  number.  Thus  the  Anglican  Church  obtained  a  definite 
constitution  and  a  ritual.  Able  and  zealous  preachers,  among 
whom  were  Matthew  Parker,  Latimer,  and  John  Knox,  made 
many  converts  to  the  Protestant  doctrine.  The  progress  of 
innovation,  however,  was  somewhat  too  rapid  for  the  general 
sense  of  the  nation.  The  spoliation  of  Church  property  for  the 
profit  of  individuals,  in  which  Somerset  was  conspicuous,  gave 
just  offense.    Anxious  to  carry  out  the  plan  of  Henry  VIII.,  for 


REFORM   UNDER   EDWARD   VI.  279 

the  marriage  of  the  young  Queen  Mary  of  Scotland  to  Edward, 
and  desirous  of  uniting  the  two  countries  in  one  great  Protestant 
power,  Somerset  invaded  Scotland;  but,  though  his  arms  were 
successful,  the  antipathy  of  the  Scots  to  the  domination  of  the 
EngUsh  was  too  strong  to  be  overcome;  and  Mary  was  taken 
to  France,  there  to  be  married  to  the  Dauphin.  A  Catholic 
rebellion  in  Cornwall  and  Devonshire  was  suppressed,  but  the 
opposition  to  Somerset  on  various  grounds,  which  was  led  by 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  finally  brought  the  Protector 
to  the  scaffold ;  and  Northumberland,  who  was  now  at  the  head 
of  affairs,  concluded  a  peace  with  France,  in  which  the  project 
of  a  marriage  of  Edward  with  Mary  was  virtually  renounced. 
Under  Cranmer's  superintendence  a  revisal  of  the  ecclesiastical 
statutes,  including  those  for  the  punishment  of  heresy,  was 
undertaken ;  but  the  work  was  not  finished  when  the  King  died, 
at  the  age  of  sixteen  (1553). 

The  reactionary  movement  that  attended  the  accession  of 
Mary  to  the  throne  was  heightened  by  the  abortive  attempt 
of  Northumberland  to  deprive  her  of  it  by  persuading  the  dying 
King  to  bequeath  the  crown  to  Lady  Jane  Grey,  a  descendant 
of  Henry's  sister,  and  a  Protestant,  whom  Northumberland 
had  married  to  his  son.  The  party  which  thus  sought  to  over- 
throw the  order  of  succession  that  had  been  fixed  by  act  of 
Parliament,  found  that  it  was  feebly  supported,  soon  became 
divided,  and  effected  nothing.  The  insurrection  under  Wyat 
was  punished  by  the  death  of  its  leaders,  and  led  to  the  execution 
of  Lady  Jane  Grey.  Mary  was  narrow,  with  the  obstinate  will 
of  her  father,  and  superstitiously  attached  to  the  religion  of 
her  mother.  She  proceeded  as  expeditiously  as  her  more  pru- 
dent advisers  —  of  whom  Philip  of  Spain  was  the  chief  —  would 
permit,  to  restore  the  CathoHc  system.  She  soon  dislodged 
the  married  clergy  from  their  places.  The  Prayer  Book  was 
abolished.  Disdaining  the  suggestion  that  she  should  marry 
an  Englishman,  she  gave  her  hand  to  Philip  with  a  devotion 
in  which  zeal  for  the  Catholic  faith  was  indistinguishably  mingled 
with  personal  regard.  The  point  on  which  Parliament  showed 
most  hesitation  was  the  matter  of  the  Supremacy.  The  oppo- 
sition to  papal  control  was  more  general  and  better  established 
than  the  antagonism  to  Roman  Catholic  doctrine.  Parliament 
insisted  that  the  guarantee  of  the  abbey  lands  to  their  new  pos- 


280  THE   REFORMATION 

sessors  should  be  incorporated  in  the  very  act  which  reestablished 
papal  authority.  Reginald  Pole,  who  was  made  legate  of  the 
Pope  in  1554,  and  succeeded  Cranmer  in  the  archbishopric,  was 
the  Queen's  spiritual  counselor.  The  fourth  of  the  great  meas- 
ures for  the  destruction  of  Protestantism  was  the  enforcement 
of  the  laws  against  heresy.  Gardiner  lost  no  time  in  abandon- 
ing the  doctrine  of  the  King's  supremacy,  which  it  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  he  ever  sincerely  held.  He  and  Bonner,  the  new 
Bishop  of  London,  were  active  in  persecution.  The  foreign 
theologians  were  driven  out  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  foreign 
congregations  dispersed.  Not  less  than  eight  hundred  Eng- 
Hshmen,  whose  fives  were  in  danger  at  home,  found  an  asylum 
among  their  brethren  in  Germany  and  Switzerland.  The  noble 
fortitude  with  which  Hooper,  Latimer,  Ridley,  and  numerous 
other  martyrs  endured  the  fire,  cfid  much  to  strengthen  the 
Protestant  cause  and  to  break  down  the  popularity  of  Mary. 
Cranmer,  from  the  day  when  he  saw  from  his  prison  tower 
the  burning  of  his  companions,  Ridley  and  Latimer,  seems  to 
have  lost  his  spirit.  He  was  persuaded  to  make  an  abject  re- 
cantation; but,  notwithstanding  this  act,  it  was  determined 
that  he  should  die.  What  course  he  would  have  pursued  had 
he  been  permitted  to  five,  it  is  impossible  to  tell;  but,  in  the 
prospect  of  certain  death,  his  courage  revived,  and  he  exhibited 
at  the  end  a  dignity  and  constancy  which  have  gone  far  in  the 
estimation  of  posterity  to  atone  for  his  previous  infirnuties. 
The  fault  of  Cranmer  was  a  time-serving  spirit;  an  undue  sub- 
servience to  power;  a  timidity,  which  is  not  compatible  with 
the  highest  type  of  manly  honesty.  An  example  of  this  is  seen 
in  the  course  he  adopted  on  taking  the  oaths  of  canonical  obedi- 
ence to  the  Pope,  at  his  consecration  as  Archbishop;  when  he 
satisfied  his  conscience  by  a  protest  to  the  effect  that  he  did  not 
consider  himself  bound  to  abstain  from  measures  for  the  refor- 
mation of  the  Church,*  and  (on  April  19)  renounced  all  grants 
from  the  Pope  that  might  be  prejudicial  to  the  King.  His 
participation  in  the  condemnation  of  John  Frith,  who  was 
burned  at  Smithfield  in  1533  for  denying  the  corporal  presence 
of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament;  and  still  more,  his  part  in  the  exe- 
cution of  Jean  Boucher,  or  Joan  of  Kent,  who  was  called  an 

'  This  protestation  was  not  communicated  to  the  Pope.      See  Hallam's  remarks 
upon  it.  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  ii.  (Harpers'  Am.  ed.,  pp.  65,  66  and  n.). 


THE   REIGN   OF   MARY  281 

Anabaptist,  and  was  burned,  in  the  reign  of  Edward,  for  an 
heretical  opinion  respecting  the  Incarnation  —  not  to  speak  of 
other  examples  of  a  hke  intolerance  —  are  a  blot  upon  his 
memory.  In  the  last  days  of  Edward,  Cranmer  and  his  asso- 
ciates were  engaged  in  shaping  laws  for  the  punishment  of  be- 
lievers in  doctrines  which  he  had  himself  held  not  long  before, 
and  for  disbelieving  in  which  he  had  assisted  in  bringing  Frith 
and  others  to  the  stake.  The  Protestant  bishops,  says  Lin- 
gard,  the  CathoUc  historian,  "perished  in  flames  which  they 
had  prepared  for  their  adversaries."  ^  Yet  Cranmer,  as  Burnet 
has  justly  said,  was  instigated  by  no  cruelty  of  temper.  He 
was  under  the  sway  of  the  idea  that  there  must  be  uniformity, 
and  that  the  magistrate  must  be  responsible  for  securing  it. 
This  idea  it  was,  in  connection  with  the  pUant  disposition  which 
belonged  to  him  by  nature,  that  moved  him,  in  the  last  years  of 
Henry  VIII.,  to  an  unjustifiable  concealment  or  compromise 
of  his  opinions.  It  must  be  set  down  to  his  credit  that  he  raised 
his  voice  against  the  adoption  of  the  Six  Articles,  and  inter- 
ceded, when  intercession,  in  however  cautious  a  form,  was 
hazardous,  for  the  lives  of  Anne  Boleyn  and  Cromwell.  But 
the  burning  of  a  man  of  his  venerable  age,  who  had  filled  so  large 
a  space  in  the  public  eye,  whose  hand  had  been  pressed  by 
Henry  VIII.  when  he  was  dying,  and  whose  own  death  took 
place  under  circumstances  so  affecting,  could  not  fail  to  react 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  Queen  and  of  her  creed.  Various 
other  causes  conspired  to  render  her  unpopular.  In  1555 
Paul  IV.,  a  violent  bigot,  and  withal  hostile  to  the  Spanish- 
Austrian  House,  became  Pope.  He  insisted  on  a  restoration 
of  the  Church  property  in  England.  He  would  have  the  ruined 
monasteries  once  more  tenanted  by  the  monks.  That  is  to 
say,  he  was  resolved  to  annul  the  condition  on  which  alone  Par- 
liament had  consented  to  restore  the  papal  supremacy.  More- 
over, England  was  brought,  through  Philip,  to  take  part  in  the 
war  of  Spain  against  France,  which  gave  the  victory  of  St. 
Quentin  to  the  Spanish  king,  but  made  the  English  smart  under 
the  loss  of  Calais.  The  Queen,  whose  whole  soul  was  bound 
up  with  the  cause  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  who  looked  upon 
Philip  as  its  champion,  was  forced  to  witness  the  hostihty  of 

•  This  is  somewhat  too  severe,  as  the  temporal  penalties  of  heresy  were  to  be 
fixed  by  Parliament.     See  Hallam,  Const.  Hist,  of  England  (later  editions),  ch.  ii. 


282  THE  REFORMATION 

the  Pope  to  her  husband,  and  to  see  Pole,  who  belonged  to  that 
section  of  the  Catholics  which  was  inclined  to  Protestant 
views  of  justification,  and  for  this  reason  was  dishked  by  Paul 
IV.,  deprived  of  the  legatine  office.  To  add  to  the  perils  of  the 
situation,  France  was  in  alHance  with  Scotland.  Mary  died 
on  the  17th  of  November,  1558.  The  next  night.  Cardinal 
Pole  died.  It  is  remarkable  that  within  a  short  time  before 
or  after  the  Queen's  death,  not  less  than  thirteen  of  her  bishops 
died  also. 

The  nation  welcomed  EHzabeth  to  the  throne.  Her  bias, 
which  resulted  from  her  education  and  her  native  habit  of  feel- 
ing, was  towards  a  highly  conservative  Protestantism.  The 
point  to  which  she  was  irrevocably  attached  was  that  of  the 
sovereign's  supremacy.  Her  own  legitimacy  and  title  to  the 
throne  depended  on  it,  and  her  natural  love  of  power  confirmed 
her  attachment  to  it.  She  did  not  reject  the  Protestant  doc- 
trines respecting  gratuitous  salvation  and  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  Scriptures,  but  she  was  disposed  to  retain  as  much  as 
possible  of  the  ancient  ritual.  She  had  a  decided  repugnance 
to  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  and  was  with  difficulty  dissuaded 
from  absolutely  forbidding  it.  She  kept  on  the  altar  of  her 
own  private  chapel  a  crucifix  and  a  burning  candle.  On  her 
accession,  she  is  said  to  have  notified  Paul  IV.  of  the  fact;  but 
this  fanatical  prelate  haughtily  repHed  that  she  must  submit 
her  claims  to  his  decision.  At  a  later  day,  when  Pius  IV.  offered 
to  make  important  concessions,  such  as  the  granting  of  the 
cup  to  the  laity  and  the  use  of  the  English  Liturgy,  the  proposal 
was  refused.  In  the  revision  of  the  Liturgy,  the  passage  in  the 
Litany  relative  to  the  "tyranny  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  and  all 
his  detestable  enormities"  was  omitted,  as  well  as  the  explana- 
tion of  the  rubric  that  by  kneeling  in  the  Sacrament  no  adora- 
tion is  intended  for  any  corporal  presence  of  Christ.  The 
Forty-two  Articles  were  reduced  to  Thirty-nine,  in  the  revision 
by  Convocation  in  1563 ;  and  its  act  was  confirmed  by  Parlia- 
ment in  1571.  The  Act  of  Supremacy  placed  ecclesiastical  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  Queen,  and  the  Act  of  Uniformity  made 
dissent  in  public  teaching  and  in  the  ceremonies  of  worship 
unlawful.  A  Court  of  High  Commission  was  established  and 
furnished  with  ample  powers  for  enforcing  uniformity,  and 
suppressing  and  punishing  heresy  and  dissent. 


THE   POLICY   OF   ELIZABETH  283 

The  two  classes  of  subjects  against  whom  these  powers  were 
to  be  exerted  were  the  Catholics  and  the  party  which  was 
growing  up  under  the  name  of  Puritans.  That  the  persecution 
to  which  CathoUcs  were  subject  during  this  reign  was  palUated, 
and  that  the  severe  proceedings  against  them  were  in  some 
cases  justified,  by  the  poUtical  hostility  wliich  was  often  in- 
separably mingled  with  their  rehgious  faith,  is  true.  When  the 
Protestantism  of  the  Queen  was  made  the  ground  of  attack  upon 
her  on  the  part  of  foreign  powers,  and  of  conspiracies  against  her 
life;  when  at  length  she  was  deposed  by  a  bull  of  Pius  V.,  and 
her  subjects  released  from  their  allegiance,  it  was  natural  that 
severity  should  be  used  towards  that  portion  of  her  subjects 
who  were  looked  upon  as  the  natural  allies  of  her  enemies.  Yet 
it  is  likewise  true  that  repressive  measures  were  adopted  against 
the  Catholics  in  many  cases  where  justice  as  well  as  sound  poHcy 
would  have  dictated  a  different  course. 

A  consideration  of  the  general  character  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  as  that  was  determined  after  the  accession  of  Elizabeth, 
will  qualify  us  to  understand  the  Puritan  controversy.  The 
feature  that  distinguished  the  English  Church  from  the  reformed 
churches  on  the  Continent  was  the  retention  in  its  polity  and 
worship  of  so  much  that  had  belonged  to  the  Catholic  system. 
The  first  step  in  the  English  Reformation  was  the  assertion  of 
the  Royal  Supremacy.  At  the  beginning  this  meant  a  declara- 
tion of  the  nation's  independence  of  Rome.  But  the  positive 
character  of  this  supremacy  was  not  clearly  defined.  In  the 
time  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  in  the  beginning  of  Edward's  reign, 
Cranmer  and  the  bishops,  hke  civil  officers,  held  their  commis- 
sions at  the  King's  pleasure.  On  the  death  of  Henry,  Cran- 
mer considered  the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury  vacant  until 
he  should  be  supplied  with  a  new  appointment.  As  the  head 
of  the  Church,  the  King  could  make  and  deprive  bishops,  as  he 
could  appoint  and  degrade  all  other  officers  in  the  kingdom. 
The  episcopal  polity  was  retained,  partly  because  the  bishops 
generally  fell  in  with  the  proceedings  of  Henry  VIII.  and 
Edward  for  the  reform  of  the  Church,  and  on  account  of  the 
compact  organization  of  the  monarchy,  in  consequence  of  which 
the  nation  acted  as  one  body.  But  in  the  first  age  of  the  Refor- 
mation, and  until  the  rise  of  Puritanism  as  a  distinct  party, 
there  was  little  controversy  among  Protestants  in  relation  to 


284  THE   REFORMATION 

episcopacy.  Not  only  was  Melancthon  willing  to  allow  bishops 
with  a  jure  humano  authority,  but  Luther  and  Calvin  were  also 
of  the  same  mind.  The  episcopal  constitution  of  the  English 
Church  for  a  long  period  put  no  barrier  in  the  way  of  the 
most  free  and  fraternal  relations  between  that  body  and  the 
Protestant  churches  on  the  Continent.  As  we  have  seen, 
Cranmer  placed  foreign  divines  in  very  responsible  places  in 
the  EngUsh  Church.  Ministers  who  had  received  Presbyterian 
ordination  were  admitted  to  take  charge  of  EngUsh  parishes 
without  a  question  as  to  the  vahdity  of  their  orders.  We 
find  Cranmer,  Melancthon,  and  Calvin  more  than  once  in  cor- 
respondence with  one  another,  in  regard  to  the  calhng  of  a 
general  Protestant  Council,  to  counteract  the  influence  of 
Trent.  The  great  EngHsh  divines  were  in  constant  correspon- 
dence with  the  Helvetic  reformers,  to  whom  they  looked  for 
counsel  and  sympathy,  and  whom  they  addressed  in  a  deferen- 
tial and  affectionate  style.  The  pastors  of  Zurich,  Bullinger 
the  successor,  and  Gualter,  the  son-in-law  of  Zwingli,  were 
their  intimate  and  trusted  advisers.  It  was  a  common  opinion 
that  there  is  a  parity  between  bishops  and  presbyters;  that 
the  difference  is  one  of  office  and  not  of  order.  This  had  been 
a  prevailing  view  among  the  schoolmen  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Though  it  belonged  to  bishops  to  ordain  and  (in  the  Latin 
Church)  to  confirm;  yet  the  priest,  not  less  than  the  bishop, 
performed  the  miracle  of  the  Eucharist,  the  highest  clerical 
act.  Cranmer  distinctly  asserted  the  parity  of  the  two  classes 
of  clergy.  The  same  thing  is  found  in  the  "Bishops'  Book," 
or  Institution  of  a  Christian  Man,  which  was  put  forth  by 
authority  in  1537.^  But  Cranmer  has  left  on  record  an  explicit 
assertion  of  his  opinion.^    Jewel,  one  of  the  great  fights  of  the 

'  Burnet,  i.  468  (Addenda).  Burnet  says  that  it  was  "the  common  style  of 
that  age" —  derived  from  the  schoolmen —  "to  reckon  bishops  and  priests  as 
the  same  office."  After  the  Tridentine  Council,  the  doctrine  of  the  institutio 
divina  of  bishops  prevailed  in  the  Catholic  Church.     See  Gieseler,  i.  i.  2.  §  30,  n.  i. 

2  See  Burnet,  i.  (ii.)  Collection  of  Records,  xxi.  The  Resolutions  of  several 
Bishops  and  Divines,  of  some  Questions  concerning  the  Sacraments,  etc.  "Ques- 
tion 10.  Whether  bishops  or  priests  were  first?  and  if  the  priests  first,  then  the 
priests  made  the  bishop."  Cranmer  answers:  "The  bishops  and  priests  were  at 
one  time,  and  were  no  two  things,  but  both  one  office  in  the  beginning  of  Christ's 
religion."  "Question  12.  Whether  in  the  New  Testament  be  required  any  con- 
secration of  bishop  or  priests,  or  only  appointing  to  the  office  be  sufficient?" 
Cranmer  answers:  "In  the  New  Testament,  he  that  is  appointed  to  be  a  bi.shop 
or  priest  needeth  no  consecration  by  the  Scripture,  for  election  or  appointing 
thereto  is  sufficient."     In  answer  to  question  14,  Craruner  says  that  "it  is  not 


THE   EPISCOPAL   QUESTION  285 

English  Church  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
appears  to  hold  this  view.  Bancroft,  the  successor  of  Whit- 
gift  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  is  thought  to  have  been  the 
first  to  maintain  the  necessity  of  bishops,  or  the  jure  divino  doc- 
trine.^ There  is  no  trace  of  such  a  doctrine  in  the  "Apology 
for  the  Church  of  England,"  and  in  the  "  Defense  of  the  Apology," 
by  Jewel,  which  have  been  regarded  by  Anghcans  with  just 
pride  as  an  able  refutation  of  Roman  Catholic  accusations 
against  their  system.  At  a  much  later  time.  Lord  Bacon,  in 
his  "Advertisement  concerning  Controversies  of  the  Church  of 
England,"  speaks  of  the  stiff  defenders  of  all  the  orders  of  the 
Church,  as  beginning  to  condemn  their  opponents  as  "a  sect." 
"Yea,  and  some  indiscreet  persons  have  been  bold  in  open 
preaching  to  use  dishonorable  and  derogatory  speech  and  cen- 
sure of  the  churches  abroad;  and  that  so  far,  as  some  of  our 
men,  as  I  have  heard,  ordained  in  foreign  parts,  have  been  pro- 
nounced to  be  no  lawful  ministers.  Thus  we  see  the  begin- 
nings were  modest,  but  the  extremes  were  violent."  ^  Near 
the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  Hooker,  in  his  celebrated  work 
in  defense  of  the  Chiu-ch  of  England,  fully  concedes  the  validity 
of  Presbyterian  ordination;  with  tacit  reference,  as  Keble,  his 
modern  editor,  concedes,  to  the  continental  Churches.  Laud 
was  reproved  in  1604  for  maintaining  in  his  exercise  for  Bachelor 
of  Divinity  at  Oxford  that  there  could  be  no  true  church  with- 
out bishops;  "which  was  thought  to  cast  a  bone  of  contention 
between  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Reformed  on  the  Con- 
tinent." Even  as  late  as  1618,  in  the  reign  of  James  I.,  an 
English  bishop  and  several  Anglican  clergymen  sat  in  the  Synod 
of  Dort,  with  a  presbyter  for  its  moderator. 

The  Anglican  Church  agreed  with  the  Protestant  churches 

forbidden  by  God's  law,"  if  all  the  bishops  and  priests  in  a  region  were  dead,  that 
"the  King  of  that  region  should  make  bishops  and  priests  to  supply  the  same." 
See  also  a  Declaration  signed  by  Cranmer  and  other  bishops,  with  Cromwell. 
Burnet,  Ibid.  Addenda  V.  After  describing  in  full  the  functions  of  the  clergy, 
it  is  said:  "This  office,  this  power  and  authoritj',  was  committed  and  given  by 
Christ  and  his  Apostles  unto  certain  persons  only,  that  is  to  say,  unto  priests  or 
bishops,  whom  they  did  elect,  call,  and  admit  thereunto  by  their  prayers  and 
imposition  of  hands."  "The  truth  is  that  in  the  New  Testament  there  is  no  men- 
tion made  of  any  degrees  or  distinctions  in  orders,  but  only  of  deacons  or  ministers, 
and  of  priests  or  bishops."  Thirteen  bishops,  with  a  great  number  of  other  ec- 
clesiastics, subscribed  to  this  proposition. 

'  Hallam  thinks  that  not  even  Bancroft  taught  this  view,  where  it  is  sup- 
posed by  many  to  be  found,  in  his  sermon  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  (1589).  Const. 
Hist.,  p.  226  (Harpers'  Am.  ed.).  ^  Works  (Montagu's  ed.),  vii.  48. 


286  •    THE   REFORMATION 

on  the  Continent  on  the  subject  of  predestination.  On  this 
subject,  for  a  long  period,  the  Protestants  generally  were  united 
in  opinion.  They  adopted  the  Augustinian  tenet.  The  im- 
potency  of  the  will  is  affirmed  by  Luther  as  strongly  as  by  Cal- 
vin. Melancthon's  gradual  modification  of  the  doctrine,  which 
allowed  to  the  will  a  cooperative  agency  in  conversion,  only 
affected  a  portion  of  the  Lutheran  Church.  The  leaders  of  the 
Enghsh  Reformation,  from  the  time  when  the  death  of  Henry 
VIII.  placed  them  firmly  upon  Protestant  ground,  profess  the 
doctrine  of  absolute,  as  distinguished  from  conditional,  pre- 
destination, which  is  the  essential  feature  of  both  the  Augus- 
tinian and  Calvinistic  systems.  It  is  true  that  Cranmer, 
Ridley,  and  Latimer  have  not  left  so  definite  expressions  on  this 
subject  in  their  writings  as  is  the  case  with  the  Elizabethan 
bishops.  But  the  seventeenth  of  the  Articles  cannot  fairly  be 
interpreted  in  any  other  sense  than  that  of  unconditional  elec- 
tion; and  the  cautions  which  are  appended,  instead  of  being 
opposed  to  this  interpretation,  demonstrate  the  correctness  of 
it;  for  who  was  ever  "thrust  into  desperation,  or  into  wretch- 
lessness  of  most  unclean  living,"  by  the  opposite  doctrine?^ 
Bradford  when  in  prison  in  London  disputed  on  this  subject 
with  certain  "free  willers,"  of  whom  he  wrote  to  his  fellow- 
martyrs  then  at  Oxford.  Ridley's  letter  in  reply  certainly  im- 
pUes  sympathy  with  his  friend  in  this  opinion.^  Strype  says 
that  Ridley  and  Bradford  wrote  on  predestination,  and  that 
Bradford's  treatise  was  approved  by  Cranmer,  Ridley,  and 
Latimer.  The  relations  of  Cranmer  to  Bucer  and  Peter  Martyr 
throw  light  on  his  opinion  relative  to  this  question.  Bucer, 
before  he  was  called  to  England,  had  dedicated  his  exposition 
of  the  Romans,  in  which  he  sets  forth  the  doctrine  of  absolute 
predestination,  to  Cranmer.     Peter  Martyr  elaborately  defended 

*  It  is  important  to  observe,  that  in  the  inquiry  whether  the  Articles  are 
"Calvinistic"  or  not,  this  term  is  used  in  contradistinction  to  Arminian.  Among 
the  writers  in  defense  of  their  non-Calvinistic  character  is  Archbishop  Lawrence, 
Bampton  Lectures  (1804).  On  the  same  side,  with  some  hesitation,  is  Bishop 
Harald  Browne,  who  reviews  the  controversy.  An  Expos-it.  of  the  xxxix.  Articles 
(1858).  Bishop  Burnet,  himself  a  Latitudinarian,  in  his  dispassionate  discussion 
of  the  subject,  says :  "It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  Article  [xvii.]  seems  to  be 
framed  according  to  St.  Austin's  doctrine."  "It  is  very  probable  that  those  who 
penned  it  meant  that  the  decree  is  absolute."  Exposition  of  the  xxxix.  Articles 
(Art.  xvii.). 

2  The  moderation  of  Ridley  is  indicated  in  the  remark  that  he  dares  not  write 
otherwise  on  this  subject  "than  the  very  text  doth,  as  it  were,  lead  me  by  the 
hand."     Works  (Parker  Soc),  p.  368. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  PREDESTINATION  287 

this  tenet  at  Oxford,  and  replied  to  the  anti-Calvinistic  treatises 
of  Smith,  his  predecessor,  and  of  Pighius,  the  opponent  of  Cal- 
vin. It  was  during  the  residence  of  Martyr  at  Oxford  that  the 
Articles  were  framed/  On  the  accession  of  Mary,  Cranmer 
offered  to  defend,  in  conjunction  with  his  friend  Martyr,  in  a 
public  disputation,  the  doctrines  which  had  been  established  in 
the  previous  reign.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  they  mate- 
rially differed  on  this  prominent  point  of  theological  behef.^ 
There  is  more  ground  for  the  assertion  that  the  formularies  of 
the  Church  of  England  are  Augustinian,  in  distinction  from 
Calvinistic.^    Yet  it  is  admitted  by  candid  scholars  that  at  the 

*  "In  das,  von  der  Londoner  Synode  im  Jahr  1552,  aufgefasste  Glaubens- 
bekenntniss  der  Englischen  Kirche,  wurden  die  Lehre  von  der  Erbsiinde,  der 
Praedestination,  und  der  Rechtfertigung,  aufgenommen,  so  wie  Martyr,  und  mit 
ihm  alle  gleichzeitigen  protestantischen  Theologen  in  England  sie  aufgestellt 
hatten."  Dr.  C.  Schmidt,  Peter  Martyr  Vermigli:  Leben  u.  ausgewahlte  Schriften, 
p.  117. 

*  Upon  the  Calvinism  of  Cranmer,  Ridley,  and  Latimer,  see  Hunt,  Religious 
Thought  in  England,  i.  33.  Hunt  refers  to  Cranmer 's  notes  on  the  Great  Bible 
as  settling  the  point  that  he  was  a  "moderate  Calvinist." 

^  The  particulars  in  which  Calvin  varied  from  Augustine  are  these.  Augus- 
tine made  the  fall  of  Adam,  the  first  sin,  the  object  of  a  permissive  decree.  Cal- 
vin was  not  satisfied  with  a  bare,  passive  permission  on  the  part  of  God,  and 
makes  statements  which  tend  to  the  supralapsarian  idea.  (See  supra,  p.  177.) 
This  view  was  developed  by  Beza  and  a  section  of  the  Calvinists.  But  infralap- 
sarian  or  Augustinian  Calvinism  has  had  the  suffrages  of  a  majority.  It  is  found 
in  the  Westminster  Confession,  and  even  the  creed  of  the  Synod  of  Dort  does  not 
go  beyond  it.  Augustine  held  to  the  prseterition,  instead  of  the  reprobation  of 
the  wicked ;  or  rather  to  their  reprobation,  not  to  sin,  but  to  the  punishment  of 
sin.  (For  the  passages  see  Miinscher,  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  402.)  High  Calvinists 
held  to  a  positive  decree  of  reprobation,  analogous  to  that  of  election ;  yet  denied 
that  God  is  the  author  of  sin.  Calvin  differed  from  Augustine  in  holding  to  the 
perseverance  of  all  believers ;  that  is,  that  none  but  the  elect  ever  exercise  saving 
faith.  Augustine  attributed  to  the  sacraments  a  greater  effect  on  the  non-elect. 
Thus  he  held  that  all  baptized  infants  are  saved.  This  sacramental  tenet  is  often 
declared  to  be  a  feature  of  the  Anglican  system,  as  opposed  to  that  of  Calvin. 
(See,  e.g.,  Blunt,  Diet,  of  Doctr.  and  Hist.  Theol.,  p.  103.)  But  Calvin  teaches, 
not  indeed  that  a  saving  measure  of  grace  is  given  to  all  baptized  children ;  but 
still  that  all  such  are  "engrafted  into  the  body  of  the  church,"  "accepted  as  His 
[God's]  children  by  the  solemn  symbol  of  adoption,"  and  that  "God  has  his 
different  degrees  of  regenerating  those  whom  He  has  adopted."  Inst.,  iv.  xvi. 
9,  31.  He  teaches  that  grace  is  imparted,  to  some  extent,  to  non-elect  adults, 
who  are  thus  rendered  more  inexcusable.  The  ex  opere  operato  theory  of  the  sac- 
raments, the  theory  of  their  intrinsic  efficiency,  independently  of  the  feeling  of  the 
recipient,  is  denied —  in  the  xiii.  Articles,  expressly — and  "the  wholesome  effect 
or  operation"  of  them  is  confined  "to  such  only  as  worthily  receive  the  same." 
Article  xvii.  affirms  that  "we  must  receive  God's  promises  in  such  wise  as  they 
be  generally  set  forth  to  us  in  Holy  Scripture."  This  is  sometimes  said  to  be 
anti-Calvinistic.  But  Calvin  says  that  "  the  voice  of  the  gospel  addresses  all  men 
generally,"  and  that  "  the  promises  are  offered  equally  to  the  faithful  and  the  im- 
pious." Inst.,  III.  xxii.  10,  and  ii.  v.  10.  The  Article  implies  the  Calvinistic  or 
Augustinian  distinction  between  the  "  secret  will,"  or  purpose,  and  "  that  will  of 
God  "  which  is  expressly  declared. 


288  THE   REFORMATION 

beginning  of  Elizabeth's  reign  "Calvinistic  teaching  generally 
prevailed."  ^  But  through  the  whole  reign  of  Edward,  also, 
Calvin's  personal  influence  was  great  in  England.  His  con- 
troversy with  Pighius,  and  the  expulsion  of  Bolsec  from  Geneva, 
in  1551,  excited  general  attention.  It  was  about  this  time  that 
election  and  kindred  topics  began  to  be  agitated  in  England. 
Under  date  of  September  10,  1552,  Bartholomew  Traheron 
wrote  to  Bullinger:  "I  am  exceedingly  desirous  to  know  what 
you  and  the  other  very  learned  men,  who  hve  at  Zurich,  think 
respecting  the  predestination  and  Providence  of  God."  "The 
greater  number  among  us,  of  whom  I  own  myself  to  be  one, 
embrace  the  opinion  of  John  Calvin  as  being  perspicuous,  and 
most  agreeable  to  Holy  Scripture.  And  we  truly  thank  God 
that  that  excellent  treatise  of  the  very  learned  and  excellent 
John  Calvin  against  Pighius  and  one  Georgius  Siculus  should 
have  come  forth  at  the  very  time  when  the  question  began  to  be 
agitated  among  us.  For  we  confess  that  he  has  thrown  much 
Ught  upon  the  subject,  or  rather  so  handled  it  as  that  we  have 
never  before  seen  anything  more  learned  or  more  plain."  ^  At 
this  time,  as  Bullinger  indicates  by  his  reply,  even  he  was 
not  satisfied  with  the  supralapsarian  tenet,  the  modification 
of  Augustinism,  which  Calvin  had  broached;  the  theory  that 
the  first  sin  is  the  object  of  an  efficient  decree.^  After  the  acces- 
sion of  EUzabeth,  the  Institutes  of  Calvin  "were  generally  in 
the  hands  of  the  clergy,  and  might  be  considered  their  text-book 
of  theology."  * 

But  while  it  is  true  that  the  Anglican  divines  of  the  sixteenth 
century  may  be  said  to  be  Calvinistic  in  their  opinion  respecting 
the  divine  decrees,  it  is  also  true  that  they  were,  as  a  rule,  not 
rigid  in  the  profession  and  maintenance  of  this  dogma.     On 

*  Blunt,  Diet,  of  Doctr.  and  Historical  Theol.,  and  "Calvinism,"  p.  105. 
^  Original  Letters,  p.   325. 

^  After  Peter  Martyr  took  up  his  residence  at  Zurich  (in  1556),  Bullinger  went 
further  than  before  in  his  assertion  of  predestination.  See  Herzog,  Real-Encycl., 
art.  "Bullinger." 

*  Blunt,  ut  supra.  We  find  explicit  proofs  that  Jewel,  Nowell,  Sandys,  Cox, 
professed  to  concur  with  the  Reformers  of  Zurich  and  Geneva  in  every  point  of 
doctrine.  Hallam,  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  vii.  Archbishop  Grindal  (then  Bishop  of 
London),  writing  June  6,  1562,  says,  in  reference  to  certain  Lutherans  at  Bremen; 
"It  is  astonishing  that  they  are  raising  such  commotions  about  predestination. 
They  should  at  least  consult  their  own  Luther  on  the  'bondage  of  the  will.'  For 
what  else  do  Bucer,  Calvin,  and  Martyr  teach,  that  Luther  has  not  maintained  in 
that  treatise?"  (Zurich  Letters,  2d  ed.,  p.  142.)  It  was  considered  that  these 
leading  Reformers  were  substantially  united  on  this  subject. 


CALVINISM  IN   ENGLAND  289 

this  topic,  they  shared  in  the  prevaiHng  beUef  of  the  Protestants 
of  that  age.  But  they  combined  in  their  theology  other  ele- 
ments which  stood  out  in  more  distinct  reUef.  And  the  ten- 
dency to  go  back  to  antiquity,  to  seek  for  moderate,  and  to 
avoid  obnoxious,  conceptions  of  doctrine ;  in  a  word,  the  peculiar 
spirit  fostered  by  the  whole  Anglican  system,  tended  more  and 
more  to  blunt  the  sharpness  of  doctrinal  statements  on  this 
subject.  The  contrast  is  marked,  in  this  particular,  between 
Whitgift,  a  strenuous  Calvinist,  and  Hooker,  who  approved, 
in  general,  of  the  Calvinistic  system,  but  represents  in  his  whole 
tone  the  school  of  distinctively  AngUcan  theologians  which  was 
acquiring  an  increasing  strength.^  As  late  as  1595,  the  Lam- 
beth Articles,  containing  the  strongest  assertion  of  unconditional 
election,  and  of  reprobation  also,  were  subscribed  by  Whitgift, 
then  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  by  the  bishops  of  London  and 
Bangor,  and  with  slight  verbal  amendments,  by  the  Archbishop 
of  York,  and  transmitted  by  Whitgift  to  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge; these  Articles  being,  he  said,  an  explication  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Church  of  England.^  At  this  time  dissent  from 
Calvinism  had  begun  distinctly  to  manifest  itself ;  and  gradually 
the  Arminian  doctrine  spread  in  England  until,  during  the  next 
reign,  it  became  prevalent  in  the  established  Church. 

The  great  and  almost  the  only  topic  of  doctrinal  controversy 
among  Protestants  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Reformation  was 
the  Lord's  Supper.  On  this  subject,  the  Church  of  England 
alUed  itself  to  the  Reformed  or  Calvinistic  branch  of  the  Protes- 
tant family.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Bucer  and  Calvin 
had  struck  out  a  middle  path  between  the  Lutheran  idea  of  the 

»  Hooker,  in  the  copious  Preface  to  his  Treatise,  lauds  Calvin,  whom  he  pro- 
nounces "incomparably  the  wisest  man  that  ever  the  French  Church  did  enjoy, 
since  the  hour  it  enjoyed  him."  He  praises  Calvin's  "Institutes"  and  Commen- 
taries, and  has  no  contest  with  his  doctrinal  system.  At  the  same  time.  Hooker's 
work  is  tinged  throughout  with  the  characteristics  of  the  Anglican  school.  Prin- 
cipal Tulloch  has  interesting  remarks  on  what  he  terms  "the  comprehensive- 
ness and  genial  width  of  view"  of  the  Anglican  Calvinists,  such  as  Jewel  and 
Hooker.     English  Puritanism  and  its  Leaders,  pp.  5,  7,  41. 

2  The  Lambeth  Articles  may  be  found  in  Neal,  History  of  the  Puritans,  i. 
209,  and  in  Cardwell,  History  of  the  Articles  (App.  v.),  p.  343.  Cardwell  prints  the 
Articles,  both  as  written  by  Whitaker  and  as  subscribed.  If  Art  v.  asserts  per- 
severance in  the  exercising  of  true  and  justifying  faith  of  the  elect  only.  Art.  vi. 
affirms  that  all  who  are  possessed  of  this  faith  have  a  full  assurance  and  certainty 
of  their  everlasting  salvation.  The  Articles  of  the  Episcopal  Church  adopted 
in  Ireland  in  1615  were  decidedly  Calvinistic.  Archbishop  Usher,  who  became 
Primate  of  the  Irish  Church  in  1624,  was  a  most  learned  advocate  of  this  type  of 
theology. 


290  THE   REFORMATION 

local  presence  of  the  body  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist,  and  the 
idea  of  a  mere  commemoration,  which  was  the  original  view  of 
Zwingli.  This  middle  doctrine  denied  the  Lutheran  hypothesis 
of  the  ubiquity  of  Christ's  body,  asserted  that  it  is  now  confined 
to  heaven,  but  at  the  same  time  affirmed  a  real,  though  myste- 
rious and  purely  spiritual  reception  of  Christ  by  beUevers  alone, 
by  virtue  of  which  a  vitahzing  power  is  communicated  to  the 
recipient,  even  from  His  body.  With  this  hypothesis  of  a  real, 
but  spiritual  presence  and  reception  of  Christ,  the  Zwinglians 
were  satisfied.  Even  Zwingli  and  (Ecolampadius  were  not  dis- 
posed to  contend  against  it;  and  it  formed  the  basis  of  union 
between  Calvin  and  his  followers,  and  the  Zwinglian  Churches. 
At  the  outset,  after  giving  up  transubstantiation,  Cranmer 
adopted  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  "  consubstantiation " ;  but 
Ridley  embraced  the  Swiss  doctrine,  in  its  later  form,  and  Cran- 
mer declared  himself  of  the  same  mind.  On  the  31st  of  Decem- 
ber, 1548,  Bartholomew  Traheron  writes  to  Bullinger  of  the 
Disputation  which  had  just  been  held  in  London,  on  the  Eucha- 
rist, "in  the  presence  of  almost  all  the  nobihty  of  England." 
He  says:  "the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  contrary  to  general 
expectation,  most  openly,  firmly,  and  learnedly  maintained 
your  opinion  upon  this  subject.  His  arguments  were  as  follows : 
The  body  of  Christ  was  taken  up  from  us  into  heaven.  Christ 
has  left  the  world.  '  Ye  have  the  poor  always  with  you,  but  me 
ye  have  not  always,'  etc.  Next  followed  the  Bishop  of  Roches- 
ter "  [Ridley].  "The  truth  never  obtained  a  more  brilUant 
victory  among  us"  —  that  is,  in  conflict  with  the  Papists,  "I 
perceive  that  it  is  all  over  with  Lutheranism,  now  that  those 
who  were  considered  its  principal  and  almost  only  supporters, 
have  altogether  come  over  to  our  side."  ^     The  exiles  who  fled 

'  Cranmer  himself  says,  referring  to  his  translation,  in  the  first  year  of  Ed- 
ward, of  the  Lutheran  Catechism  of  Justus  Jonas,  in  which  it  is  affirmed  that 
the  body  and  blood  of  the  Saviour  are  received  by  the  mouth  :  "Not  long  before 
I  wrote  the  said  Catechism,  I  was  in  that  error  of  the  real  presence,  as  I  was  many 
years  past,  in  divers  other  errors,  as  transubstantiation"  —  here  he  enumerates 
other  papal  doctrines  which  he  had  once  held.  Cranmer,  Treatises  on  the  Lord's 
Supper  (Parker  Soc),  P-  374.  In  the  discussions  respecting  the  Sacrament 
prior  to  the  preparation  of  the  xlii.  Articles  of  1553,  Bucer  thought  Martyr  too 
Zwinglian.  See  C.  Schmidt,  Peter  Martyr  Vermigli:  Leben  u.  ausgewdhlte  Schrif- 
ten,  p.  103  seq. ;  Baum,  Capito  u.  Bucer,  Leben,  etc.,  p.  555;  Hardwick,  History 
of  the  Articles  of  Religion,  p.  96.  But  this  led  to  no  serious  disagreement.  Bucer 
and  Martyr  were  both  substantially  Calvinistic.  The  idea  that  Cranmer  was 
disinclined  to  the  "Swi.ss  doctrine"  is  contradicted  by  his  own  words:  "Bucer 
dissenteth  in  nothing  from  CEcolampadius  and  Zwinglius,"    The   Lord's   Supper 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER  291 

from  England  on  the  death  of  Edward  were  inhospitably  re- 
ceived in  Germany  on  account  of  their  Calvinism.  In  1562, 
after  the  readoption  of  the  Articles  mider  EHzabeth,  Jewel 
wrote  to  Peter  Martyr:  "As  for  matters  of  doctrine,  we  have 
pared  everything  away  to  the  quick,  and  do  not  differ  from  your 
doctrine  by  a  nail's  breadth;  for  as  to  the  ubiquitarian  theory" 
—  the  Lutheran  view  —  "there  is  no  danger  in  this  country. 
Opinions  of  that  kind  can  only  gain  admittance  where  the  stones 
have  sense."  ^  But  there  is  no  need  of  bringing  forward  fur- 
ther evidence  on  this  point,  since  the  Articles  expHcitly  assert 
the  Calvinistic  view.  In  speaking  of  the  EngUsh  Reformers 
as  Calvinistic,  it  is  not  impHed  that  they  derived  their  opinions 
from  Calvin  exclusively,  or  received  them  on  his  authority. 
They  were  able  and  learned  men,  and  explored  the  Scriptures 
and  the  patristic  writers  for  themselves.  Yet  no  name  was 
held  in  higher  honor  among  them  than  that  of  the  Genevan 
Reformer. 

A  controversy  of  greater  moment  for  the  subsequent  eccle- 
siastical as  well  as  poUtical  history  of  England  was  that  between 
the  AngHcans  and  Puritans.  From  the  beginning,  there  were 
some  in  England  who  wished  to  introduce  more  radical  changes 
and  to  conform  the  EngUsh  Reformation  to  the  type  which  it 
had  reached  among  the  Reformed  or  Calvinistic  Churches  on 
the  Continent.  This  disposition  gained  force  through  the  resi- 
dence of  the  foreign  cUvines  in  England  in  the  time  of  Edward, 
and  still  more  by  the  return  of  the  exiles  after  the  accession  of 
Elizabeth.  The  great  obstacles  in  the  way  of  obtaining  the 
changes  which  they  desired  were  the  strength  of  the  CathoHc 
party  and  the  conservatism  of  Queen  EHzabeth.  The  con- 
troversy first  had  respect  to  the  use  of  the  vestments,  especially 
the  cap  and  surpHce,  and  extended  to  other  pecuharities  of  the 
ritual.  The  ground  of  the  Puritan  objection  was  that  these 
things  were  identified  in  the  popular  mind  with  the  papal  notion 

(Parker  Soc),  P-  225.  The  changes  in  the  Order  of  Communion,  in  the  Revision  of 
1552,  are  Zwinglian  in  their  tone.  See  Cardwell,  History  of  Conferences  and  Other 
Proceedings  connected  with  the  Revision  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  pp.  4,  5. 
King  Edward's  Catechism  for  all  schoolmasters  to  teach  is  definitely  anti-Lutheran. 
The  commemorative  side  of  the  Eucharist  is  emphasized.  Faith  is  described  as 
the  mouth  of  the  spirit  for  receiving  Christ.  See  Liturgies  of  King  Edward 
(Parker  Soc),  pp.  516,  517.  Bishop  Coverdale,  the  friend  of  Cranmer,  translated 
a  writing  of  Calvin  on  the  Sacrament. 

'  February  7,  1562.     Zurich  Letters  (2d  series),  p.  124. 


292  THE   REFORMATION 

of  a  particular  priesthood.  They  were  badges  of  popery,  and 
for  this  reason  should  be  discarded.  When  it  was  replied  that 
the  surplice,  the  cross  in  baptism,  kneeling  at  the  Sacrament, 
are  things  indifferent  in  their  nature,  the  rejoinder  was  made 
that  since  they  are  misleading  in  their  influence,  they  are  not 
indifferent,  in  the  moral  sense,  but  that  if  they  are  indifferent, 
the  magistrate  has  no  right  to  impose  them  upon  Christian 
people :  it  is  an  infringement  of  Christian  liberty.  In  this  last 
affirmation  was  involved  an  idea  with  regard  to  the  Supremacy 
which  must  lead  to  a  difference  of  a  more  radical  character. 
Hooper,  who  is  often  styled  the  father  of  the  Puritans,  had 
spent  some  time  at  Zurich  while  the  Adiaphoristic  controversy, 
which  related  to  the  same  subject  of  ceremonies,  was  raging 
in  Germany.  Being  chosen  under  Edward,  in  1550,  to  the 
bishopric  of  Gloucester,  he  refused  to  wear  the  vestments  at 
his  consecration.  Finally,  after  he  had  been  imprisoned,  the 
difficulty  was  settled  by  a  compromise.  They  were,  in  fact, 
very  much  laid  aside  during  this  reign.  At  the  beginning  of 
EUzabeth's  reign  there  was  a  general  feeUng  among  her  newly 
appointed  bishops,  most  of  whom  had  been  abroad  during  the 
persecutions  under  Mary,  in  favor  of  the  disuse  of  the  vestments 
and  of  the  offensive  ceremonies.  This  was  the  wish  of  Jewel, 
of  Nowell,  of  Sandys,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  York,  of  Grin- 
dal,  who  succeeded  Parker  in  the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury. 
Only  Cox,  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  who,  in  the  church  of  the  exiles 
at  Frankfort,  had  led  the  party  which  clung  to  the  English 
Liturgy,  and  Parker,  who  had  remained  in  England  during 
the  late  reign,  were  on  the  other  side ;  although  Parker  appears, 
at  the  outset,  to  have  looked  with  doubt  or  disfavor  upon  the 
vestments.*  Burleigh,  Walsingham,  Leicester,  were  in  favor 
of  giving  them  up,  or  of  not  making  their  use  compulsory.  Eng- 
lish prelates,  in  their  correspondence,  speak  of  them  in  the  same 
terms  of  derision  and  contempt  as  the  Puritan  leaders  after- 
wards employed.  For  example.  Jewel  says  in  one  of  his  letters 
to  Peter  Martyr:  "Now  that  the  full  light  of  the  Gospel  has 
shone  forth,  the  very  vestiges  of  error  must,  as  far  as  possible, 
be  removed,  together  wdth  the  rubbish,  and,  as  the  saying  is, 
with  the  very  dust.  And  I  wish  we  could  effect  this  in  respect 
to  that  linen  surpUce."     The  statements  of  Macaulay  are  sus- 

*  Short,  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  250. 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   PURITANS  293 

tained  by  the  correspondence  of  the  English  with  the  Swiss 
Reformers,  and  by  other  e\'idence:  "The  Enghsh  Reformers 
were  eager  to  go  as  far  as  their  brethren  on  the  Continent.  They 
unanimously  condemned  as  anti-Christian  numerous  dogmas 
and  practices  to  which  Henry  had  stubbornly  adhered  and 
which  EUzabeth  reluctantly  abandoned.  Many  felt  a  strong 
repugnance  even  to  things  indifferent  which  had  formed  part 
of  the  poUty  or  ritual  of  the  'mystical  Babylon.'  Thus  Bishop 
Hooper,  who  died  manfully  at  Gloucester  for  his  reUgion,  long 
refused  to  wear  the  episcopal  vestments.  Bishop  Ridley,  a 
martyr  of  still  greater  renown,  pulled  down  the  ancient  altars 
of  his  diocese,  and  ordered  the  Eucharist  to  be  administered 
in  the  middle  of  churches,  at  tables  which  the  Papists  irrever- 
ently termed  oyster  boards.  Bishop  Jewel  pronounced  the 
clerical  garb  to  be  a  stage  dress,  a  fool's  coat,  a  reUc  of  the  Amor- 
ites,  and  promised  that  he  would  spare  no  labor  to  extirpate 
such  degrading  absurdities.  Archbishop  Grindal  long  hesitated 
about  accepting  a  miter,  from  dislike  of  what  he  regarded  as 
the  mummery  of  consecration.  Bishop  Parkhurst  uttered  a 
fervent  prayer  that  the  Church  of  England  would  propose  to 
herself  the  Church  of  Zurich  as  the  absolute  pattern  of  a  Chris- 
tian community."  ^  But  the  Queen,  to  whom  the  Royal 
Supremacy  was  the  most  valuable  part  of  Protestantism,  was 
inflexibly  opposed  to  the  proposed  changes.  Not  without  diffi- 
culty did  the  new  bishops  succeed  in  procuring  the  removal  of 
images  from  the  churches.  The  great  fear  of  the  Protestant 
leaders  was  that  the  Queen  would  be  driven  over  to  the  Catholic 
Church,  in  case  they  undertook  to  withstand  her  wishes.  Most 
of  the  eminent  foreign  divines  on  the  Continent,  whom  they 

*  History  of  England,  i.  47.  Strype  says  that  when  Grindal  was  appointed 
Bishop  of  London,  he  "remained  under  some  scruples  of  conscience  about  some 
things ;  especially  the  habits  and  certain  ceremonies  required  to  be  used  of  such 
as  were  bishops.  For  the  Reformed  in  these  times  generally  went  upon  the  ground, 
that,  in  order  to  the  complete  freeing  of  the  Church  of  Christ  from  the  errors  and 
corruptions  of  Rome,  every  usage  and  custom  practiced  by  that  apostate  and 
idolatrous  Church  should  be  abolished,  and  that  the  service  of  God  should  be 
most  simple,  stript  of  all  that  show,  pomp,  and  appearance,  that  has  been  cus- 
tomarily used  before,  esteeming  all  that  to  be  no  better  than  superstitious  and 
anti-Christian."  Life  of  Grindal,  p.  28.  In  the  reign  of  Edward,  Martin  Bucer, 
writing  under  Cranmer's  roof  at  Lambeth,  under  date  of  April  26,  1549,  speaks 
of  the  retention  of  the  vestments,  chrism,  etc.,  in  the  Anglican  ritual,  and  says, 
"They  affirm  that  there  is  no  superstition  in  these  things,  and  that  they  are  only 
to  be  retained  for  a  time,  lest  the  people,  not  having  yet  learned  Christ,  should  be 
deterred  by  too  extensive  innovations  from  embracing  His  religion,"  etc.  Origi- 
nal Letters,  ii.   535. 


294  THE   REFORMATION 

consulted,  counseled  them  to  remain  in  the  Church,  and  not 
desert  their  offices,  but  to  labor  patiently  to  effect  the  reforms 
to  which  the  Queen  would  not  then  consent.  But  many  of  the 
clergy  did  not  conform  to  the  obnoxious  parts  of  the  ritual. 
This  occasioned  much  disorder  in  worship,  and,  as  the  Puritans 
were  not  at  all  disposed  to  follow  their  own  ways  in  silence,  it 
gave  rise  also  to  much  contention.  The  Queen  resolved  to  en- 
force uniformity,  and  required  her  bishops,  especially  Parker, 
to  prosecute  the  dehnquents.  At  length,  the  Puritans  began 
to  organize  in  separate  conventicles,  as  their  meetings  were 
styled  by  their  adversaries,  in  order  to  worship  according  to  the 
method  which  they  approved.  They  mere  numerous;  their 
clergy  were  learned  and  effective  preachers,  and  both  clergy 
and  people  were  willing  to  suffer  for  the  sake  of  conscience. 
The  cruel,  but  ineffectual,  persecution  of  them,  darkens  the 
reign  of  Ehzabeth,  especially  the  latter  part  of  it.  Among  the 
other  ends  for  which  the  Puritans  were  always  zealous,  were 
stricter  discipline  in  the  Church,  and  an  educated,  earnest 
ministry,  to  take  the  place  of  the  thousands  of  notoriously 
incompetent  clergymen.^ 

If  Hooper  was  the  parent  of  Puritanism  in  its  incipient  form, 
a  hke  relation  to  Puritanism,  as  a  ripe  and  developed  system, 
belongs  to  Thomas  Cartwright,  Lady  Margaret's  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Cambridge.  About  the  year  1570,  he  began  to 
set  forth  the  principles  respecting  the  polity  of  the  Church  and 
the  proper  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  State,  which  formed 
the  creed  of  the  body  of  the  Puritan  party  afterwards.  The 
first  point  in  his  system  is  that  the  Scriptures  are  not  only  the 
rule  of  faith,  but  also  the  rule  for  the  government  and  discipline 
of  the  Church.  They  present  a  scheme  of  pohty  from  which 
the  Church  is  not  at  hberty  to  depart.  The  second  point  is 
that  the  management  of  Church  affairs  belongs  to  the  Church 
itself  and  its  officers,  and  not  to  civil  magistrates.  Cartwright 
held  to  the  old  view  of  the  distinction  between  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  society.  While  the  magistrate  may  not  dictate  to 
the  Church  in  matters  pertaining  to  doctrine  and  discipline, 
still  he  is  bound  to  protect  and  defend  the  Church,  and  see  that 
its    decrees    are    executed.     Cartwright    was    no    advocate    of 

*  The  objections  of  the  Puritans  to  the  Anglican  Ritual  are  stated  and  ex- 
plained by  Neal,  History  of  the  Puritans,  i.  ch.  v. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   PURITANISM  295 

toleration.  In  his  system,  Church  and  State  are  indissolubly 
linked,  and  there  must  be  uniformity  in  rehgion.  But  what 
that  system  of  religion  and  worship  shall  be,  which  it  belongs  to 
the  magistrate  to  maintain,  it  is  for  the  Church  in  its  own  assem- 
blies, and  not  for  him  to  decide.  Moreover,  Cartwright  con- 
tended that  the  system  of  polity  which  the  Scriptures  ordain 
is  the  Presbyterian,  and  that  prelacy,  therefore,  is  unlawful. 

This  was,  of  course,  a  blow  at  the  Queen's  Supremacy,  as 
it  had  been  understood  and  exercised.  It  is  true  that  Elizabeth 
disclaimed  the  title  of  Head  of  the  Church  and  called  herself 
its  Governor.  The  thirty-seventh  Article,  which  was  framed 
under  EHzabeth,  expressly  denies  to  the  civil  magistrate  the 
right  to  administer  the  Word  or  the  sacraments.  But  her  visi- 
tatorial power  had  no  defined  limits.  She  did  not  hesitate  to 
prescribe  what  should  be  preached  and  what  should  not  be, 
and  what  rites  should  be  practiced  and  what  omitted,  in  a  style 
which  reminds  one  of  the  Byzantine  emperors  in  the  age  of 
Justinian.  She  was  not  satisfied  with  disposing  of  ecclesias- 
tical possessions  at  her  will.  Sir  Christopher  Hatton,  one  of 
the  Queen's  favorites,  built  his  house  in  the  garden  of  Cox,  the 
Bishop  of  Ely;  and  when  he  attempted  to  prevent  the  spolia- 
tion, she  wrote  him  a  laconic  note,  in  which  she  threatened  with 
an  oath  to  "unfrock"  him  if  he  did  not  instantly  comply  with 
her  behest.  She  forbade,  in  the  most  peremptory  manner, 
the  meetings  of  clergymen  for  discussion  and  mutual  improve- 
ment, called  "prophesyings."  When  Archbishop  Grindal  ob- 
jected to  her  order  and  reminded  her  that  the  regulation  of  such 
matters  belongs  to  the  Church  itself  and  to  its  bishops,  she 
kept  him  suspended  from  his  office  for  a  number  of  years.  The 
doctrine  of  Cartwright  annihilated  such  pretensions.  But  the 
controversy  which  it  opened  upon  the  proper  constitution  of 
the  Church,  especially  upon  the  questions  relating  to  episcopacy, 
was  destined  to  shake  the  English  Church  to  its  foundations. 
He  found  a  vigorous  opponent  in  Whitgift;  and  there  were  not 
wanting  many  other  learned  and  eager  disputants  on  each  side. 
Before  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign  a  division  appeared  among 
the   Puritans,   through   the  rise   of  the  Independents.^    They 

'  Hanbury,  Hist.  Memorials  relative  to  the  Independents  (3  vols.  London, 
1839).  Waddington,  Congregational  Church  History  from  the  Reformation  to 
1662  (London,  1862). 


296  THE   REFORMATION 

took  the  ground  that  national  churches  have  no  rightful  exist- 
ence. They  differed  from  the  other  Puritans  in  being  Separat- 
ists. According  to  their  system,  as  it  is  explained  later  by 
John  Robinson,  their  principal  leader,  the  local  Church  is  in- 
dependent; autonomic  in  its  poHty;  its  members  being  bound 
together  by  a  covenant;  its  teachers  being  elected  and  its  dis- 
cipline managed  by  popular  vote.  The  Independents  did  not 
recognize  the  Church  of  England,  in  its  national  form,  as  a  true 
Church;  but  the  separate  parish  churches  organized  under  it 
might  be  true  churches  of  Christ.  Their  prime  fault  was  the 
neglect  of  discipline,  in  consequence  of  which  some  other 
proof  of  Christian  character  must  be  required,  besides  mem- 
bership in  them.  During  the  reign  of  EUzabeth,  the  Inde- 
pendents had  acquired  no  considerable  power,  although  they 
were  the  victims  of  cruel  persecution. 

About  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  new  turn  was 
given  to  the  Puritan  controversy  by  the  great  work  of  Hooker, 
the  treatise  on  Ecclesiastical  Polity.  The  elevated  tone  of 
this  work,  combined  with  its  vigorous  reasoning  and  its  elo- 
quence, seemed  to  take  up  the  controversy  into  a  higher  atmos- 
phere.^ Hooker  endeavors  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  subject 
by  investigating  the  nature  of  laws  and  the  origin  of  authority. 
One  of  his  fundamental  propositions  is  that  the  Church  is 
endued  with  a  legislative  authority  by  its  Founder,  within  the 
limits  set  by  Him.  It  may  vary  its  organization  and  methods 
of  worship,  and  it  is  shut  down  to  no  prescribed  system.  He 
holds  that  Episcopacy  is  an  apostolical  institution,  and  is  the 
best  form  of  government;  but  he  appears  to  think  that  the 
general  Church,  "as  the  highest  subject  of  power,"  is  not  abso- 
lutely bound  to  adhere  to  this  system.  Since  the  Church  is 
thus  an  authorized  lawgiver,  it  is  factious  to  disobey  the  regula- 
tions which  the  Church  establishes,  where  they  do  not  contra- 
vene the  laws  of  its  Founder.  Hooker  identifies  Church  and 
State,  considering  the  two  as  different  aspects  of  functions  of 
one  and  the  same  society.  The  supremacy  of  the  king  over  the 
Church  is  the  logical  corollary.  It  is  remarkable  that  he  an- 
swers the  complaint  that  Christian  people  are  deprived  of  a  voice 

*  The  temper  of  Hooker  may  be  judged  from  the  following  noble  sentence : 
"There  will  come  a  time  when  three  words,  uttered  with  charity  and  meekness, 
shall  receive  a  far  more  blessed  reward  than  three  thousand  volumes  written 
with  disdainful  sharpness  of  wit."     Ecclesiast.  Polity:    Preface. 


THE   PURITAN   CONTROVERSY  297 

in  the  choice  of  their  officers,  by  bringing  forward  the  theory 
of  the  social  compact,  the  same  theory  as  that  which  Locke 
afterwards  presented.  In  truth,  this  theory  is  one  of  the  car- 
dinal principles  of  Hooker.  It  is  a  government  of  laws,  and 
not  a  despotism,  which  he  advocates  both  for  the  State  and  for 
the  Chm"ch.  His  conception  of  a  limited  monarchy  was  one  not 
agreeable  to  the  theory  or  practice  of  the  Tudors,  But  he 
curiously  appUes  this  theory  to  justify  such  customs  as  the  con- 
trol exercised  by  patrons  in  the  appointment  of  the  clergy. 

As  we  look  back  to  the  beginnings  of  the  Puritan  contro- 
versy in  the  reign  of  Edward  and  at  the  accession  of  EHzabeth, 
it  seems  plain  that  the  questions  were  those  on  which  good  and 
wise  men  among  the  Protestants  might  differ.  Half  of  the  nation 
was  CathoUc.  The  clergy  were  of  such  a  character  that  out  of 
ten  thousand  not  more  than  a  few  hundred  chose  to  leave  their 
places  rather  than  conform  to  the  Protestant  system  of  Edward. 
A  great  part  of  them  were  extremely  ignorant,  and  an  equal 
number  preferred  the  Roman  CathoUc  system  to  any  other.  How 
can  the  people  ever  be  won  from  popery,  the  Puritans  demanded, 
if  no  very  perceptible  change  is  made  in  the  modes  of  worship 
and  in  the  apparel  of  the  ministry  ?  If  the  distinctive  emblems 
and  badges  of  popery  are  left,  how  shall  the  people  be  brought 
out  of  that  system,  and  be  led  to  give  up  the  whole  theory  of 
priestly  mediation?  But  the  state  of  things  that  moved  one 
party  to  adopt  this  conclusion  had  an  opposite  effect  upon  the 
judgment  of  their  opponents.  Protestantism  may  fail  alto- 
gether, they  argued,  if  it  breaks  too  abruptly  with  the  traditional 
customs  to  which  a  great  part  of  the  nation  are  attached. 
Better  to  retain  whatever  is  anywise  compatible  with  the 
essentials  of  Protestantism,  and  wean  the  people  from  their 
old  superstitions  by  a  gentler  process.  Hold  on  to  the  apparel 
and  the  ceremonies,  but  carefully  instruct  the  people  as  to  their 
real  significance.  Thus  the  true  doctrine  will  be  saved;  and, 
moreover,  the  religious  life  of  the  nation  will  preserve,  in  a 
degree,  its  continuity  and  connection  with  the  past.  The 
tract  of  Lord  Bacon  on  the  "Pacification  of  the  Church,"  which 
was  written  in  the  reign  of  the  successor  of  Elizabeth,  is  a  calm 
and  moderate  review  of  the  Puritan  controversy,  in  which  both 
parties  come  in  for  about  an  equal  share  of  censure.^     He  com- 

'  Bacon's  Works  (Montagu's  ed.);  vii.  61  seq. 


298  THE   REFORMATION 

plains  of  the  Puritans,  among  other  things,  for  insisting  that 
there  is  one  prescribed  form  of  discipline  for  all  churches  and 
for  all  time.  He  asserts  that  there  are  "the  general  rules  of 
government:  but  for  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  for  the  par- 
ticular hierarchies,  poUcies,  and  discipUnes  of  churches,  they 
be  left  at  large."  He  complains  of  "the  partial  affectation  and 
imitation/'^  by  the  Puritans,  "of  the  foreign  churches."  But 
in  respect  to  many  of  the  evils  against  which  the  Puritans  pro- 
tested, such  as  non-residence,  pluraHties,  and  the  ignorance  of 
the  clergy,  he  is  in  sympathy  with  them.  He  thinks  that 
hberty  should  have  been  granted  in  various  things  which  were 
allowed  by  the  ruHng  party  to  be  indifferent.  He  would  give 
up  the  required  use  of  the  ring  in  marriage ;  would  give  liberty 
in  respect  to  the  surpUce ;  and  he  would  not  exact  subscriptions 
for  rites  and  ceremonies,  as  for  articles  of  doctrine.  At  the 
time  when  Bacon  wrote,  the  opponents  of  the  Puritans  were 
beginning  to  look  with  favor  on  a  theory  which  had  not  been 
held  by  them  before  that  the  episcopal  poUty  is  necessary  to 
the  existence  of  a  church.  Thus  the  Episcopalians,  as  well  as 
the  Presbyterians,  contended  alike  for  the  exclusive  lawfulness 
of  their  respective  systems. 

The  controversy  of  Churchman  and  Puritan  is  not  extinct; 
but  however  opinions  may  cUfTer  in  regard  to  the  English  Refor- 
mation and  the  merits  of  the  principal  actors  in  it,  every  one 
at  the  present  day  must  rejoice  that  no  tempest  of  iconoclasm 
ever  swept  over  England.     Whoever  looks  on  those 

—  "Swelling  hills  and  spacious  plains, 
Besprent  from  shore  to  shore  with  steeple-towers, 'J 

can  partake  of  a  briUiant  French  writer's  admiration  for  "that 
practical  good  sense  which  has  effected  revolutions  without 
committing  ravages;  which,  while  reforming  in  all  directions, 
has  destroyed  nothing;  which  has  preserved  both  its  trees  and 
its  constitution,  which  has  lopped  off  the  dead  branches  with- 
out leveling  the  trunk;  which  alone,  in  our  days,  among  all 
nations,  is  in  the  enjoyment  not  only  of  the  present  but  the 
past."^ 

*  "I,  for  my  part,  do  confess,  that,  in  revolving  the  Scriptures,  I  could  never 
find  any  such  thing ;  but  that  God  had  left  the  like  liberty  to  the  Church  gov- 
ernment as  he  had  done  to  the  civil  government,"   etc. —  Bacon's  Works,  vii.  68. 

*  Taine,  History  of  English  Literature,  ii.  517. 


THE   CONDITION   OF   SCOTLAND  299 

The  history  of  the  Scottish  Reformation  is  closely  inter- 
woven with  that  of  EUzabeth's  reign.  Her  security  depended 
on  the  divisions  of  her  enemies,  on  the  mutual  jealousies  of 
the  Cathohc  powers.  To  prevent  them  from  making  common 
cause  against  her  was  one  of  the  principal  elements  of  her  poHcy. 
It  was,  also,  essential  that  neither  of  them  should  acquire  such 
strength  and  hberty  of  action  as  would  endanger  her  safety. 
Scotland,  the  old  enemy  of  England,  and  the  old  ally  of  France, 
was  the  point  from  which,  as  she  feared  and  her  enemies  hoped, 
the  most  dangerous  assault  might  be  made  upon  her  and  upon 
Enghsh  Protestantism.  The  peril  was  much  augmented  by 
the  position  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  in  relation  to  the  Catholic 
governments,  and  by  the  schemes  and  aspirations  that  grew 
out  of  her  claims  to  the  English  throne. 

In  Scotland  the  spirit  of  feudalism  was  not  reduced,  as  it 
was  in  England:  the  feeling  of  clanship  was  strong,  and  the 
nobles  felt  none  of  that  deference  to  the  sovereign  which  was 
manifested  in  the  neighbor  country  and  in  France.  The  Scot- 
tish King  was  without  a  standing  army  or  even  a  bodyguard, 
and  must  depend  for  his  personal  protection,  as  well  as  for  his 
support  in  war,  on  the  feudal  mihtia  of  the  country,  who  took 
the  field  under  their  own  lords.  The  natural  roughness  of  the 
aristocracy  of  Scotland  was  little  softened,  except  in  a  few 
instances,  by  their  intercourse  with  the  polite  nobility  of  France. 
On  the  contrary,  "their  dress  was  that  of  the  camp  or  stable; 
they  were  dirty  in  person  and  abrupt  and  disrespectful  in 
manner,  carrying  on  their  disputes,  and  even  fighting  out  their 
fierce  quarrels,  in  the  presence  of  royalty,  which  had  by  no 
means  accomphshed  the  serene,  imperial  isolatic..  which  the 
sovereigns  of  France  had  achieved  since  the  days  of  Francis  I. 
With  the  exception  of  one  or  two  castles,  which  had  been  built 
in  the  French  style,  the  best  families  were  crowded  into  narrow 
square  towers,  in  which  all  available  means  had  been  exhausted 
in  strength,  leaving  nothing  for  comfort  or  beauty."  ^  The 
royal  residences,  with  the  exception  of  the  new  palace.  Holy- 
rood,  were  httle  better.  The  common  people,  poor  but  proud, 
self-willed  and  boisterous  in  their  manners,  could  not,  as  in 
France,  be  kept  at  a  distance  from  royalty.  In  the  reign  of 
James  V.,  and  generally  during  the  regency  of  his  Queen,  the 

*  Burton,  History  of  Scotland,  iv.  173. 


300  THE   REFORMATION 

clergy  and  the  sovereign  were  allied  by  a  common  desire  to  curb 
the  power  of  the  nobiUty.  The  clergy  profited  by  the  forfei- 
tures and  penalties  inflicted  on  the  aristocracy.  This  was  one 
reason  why  the  nobles  were  inclined  to  favor  Protestantism. 
The  lay  gentry  had  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  vast  estates  of  their 
clerical  rivals/  The  Protestant  tendency,  however,  was  opposed 
by  the  fixed,  hereditary  feehng  of  hostihty  to  England  and  to 
the  predominance  of  Enghsh  influence. 

Perhaps  there  was  no  country  where  the  Church  stood  in 
greater  need  of  reformation  than  Scotland.  The  clergy  were 
generally  ilhterate.  In  the  fifteenth  century,  three  univer- 
sities had  been  founded  in  Scotland,  —  St.  Andrews,  Glasgow, 
and  Aberdeen;  but  they  appear  to  have  accompUshed  Httle 
in  elevating  the  character  of  the  clergy,  although  they  arose  in 
time  to  serve  effectually  the  cause  of  the  Reformation.  In 
Scotland  the  Reformation  was  not  preceded,  but  followed,  by 
the  revival  of  letters.  Not  only  was  the  law  of  cehbacy  prac- 
tically abohshed,  but  the  priestly  order  was  extremely  dissolute. 
Half  of  the  property  of  the  kingdom  was  in  their  hands.  The 
covetousness  of  the  lay  lords  and  a  prevalent  just  indignation 
at  the  profligacy  of  the  clerical  body  were  the  moving  forces 
of  the  Reformation.  It  should  be  mentioned  that  praiseworthy, 
but  ineffectual,  attempts  were  made  by  the  old  Church  to  abolish 
the  most  crying  abuses.^  After  the  Protestant  spirit  began  to 
manifest  itself,  when  the  clergy  met  the  rebukes  that  were  ad- 
dressed 10  them  with  cruel  persecution,  the  popular  indignation 
acquired  a  double  intensity.  We  find,  throughout  the  Scot- 
tish Reformation,  a  tone  of  unrelenting  hostility  to  the  papal 
system  of  religion ;  a  temper  identical  with  that  of  the  prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament  in  reference  to  formalism  and  idolatry  in 
the  Jewish  Church. 

There  were  martyrs  to  the  Reformation  in  the  reign  of 
James  V.,  the  most  noted  of  whom  was  Patrick  Hamilton,  who 
had  been  a  student  at  Marburg,  and  whose  death  made  a  pro- 
found impression.  Under  the  regency  of  the  widow  of  James, 
after  the  assassination  of  Cardinal  Beaton,  the  principal  insti- 
gator of  persecution,  there  was,  for  a  long  time,  a  mild  policy 
in  the  treatment  of  heresy.     The  Earl  of  Arran,  the  Lord  Pro- 

»  Burton,  iv.  25. 

-  Ibid.,  iv.  40.     Lee,  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  i.  72  seq. 


THE   BEGINNINGS   OF   THE   SCOTTISH    REFORMATION      301 

tector,  at  first  favored  the  Protestant  side.  During  the  reign 
of  Mary  of  England,  the  hostility  of  France  to  Philip  of  Spain 
and  to  his  Enghsh  Queen,  operated  to  secure  a  lenient  treatment 
in  Scotland  for  Protestant  refugees  from  across  the  border.  The 
Conspiracy  of  Amboise  had  not  then  taken  place,  and  the  Guises, 
the  brothers  of  the  Regent,  had  not  fairly  entered  on  their  grand 
crusade  against  the  Huguenots  and  the  House  of  Bourbon.  But 
Mary  of  England  died  in  November,  1558,  and  was  succeeded  by 
EHzabeth.  Events  were  hastening  toward  a  religious  war  in 
France;  the  Conspiracy  of  Amboise  was  formed  in  1560.  At 
the  instigation  of  her  brothers,  as  it  is  supposed,  the  Regent 
changed  her  course,  and  undertook  to  carry  out  repressive  meas- 
ures. It  was  in  1559  that  John  Knox  returned  to  Scotland  from 
the  Continent,  and  the  crisis  of  the  Scottish  Reformation  soon 
ensued. 

Little  is  known  of  the  parentage  of  Knox.  At  the  Univer- 
sity of  Glasgow,  he  was  a  contemporary  of  the  celebrated  scholar 
and  historian,  George  Buchanan ;  and  he  had  among  his  teachers 
John  Mair,  or  Major,  who  had  been  in  the  University  of  Paris, 
and  had  brought  home  with  him  the  GalUcan  theory  of  church 
government,  together  with  radical  opinions  upon  the  right  of 
revolution,  and  the  derivation  of  kingly  authority  from  popular 
consent.  Major  had  also  imbibed  the  opinion  of  the  ancients 
that  tyrannicide  is  a  virtue.  He  was  not  an  able  man ;  yet  he 
may  have  contributed  somewhat  to  the  development  of  kindred 
opinions  in  the  mind  of  Knox.^  Knox  read  diligently  Augustine 
and  Jerome,  and  heartily  embraced  the  Reformed  faith.  Beaton 
was  assassinated  in  1546  by  conspirators,  some  of  whom  were 
moved  by  resentment  for  private  injuries,  and  some  by  a  desire 
to  deliver  the  country  from  his  cruelties.  Knox  himself  pro- 
fesses to  acquiesce  in  this  event,  so  far  as  it  was  providential,  or 
the  act  of  God ;  though  it  is  evident,  likewise,  that  he  has  little, 
if  any,  repugnance  towards  it,  considered  as  the  act  of  man. 
The  enemies  of  Beaton  took  refuge  in  the  Castle  of  St.  Andrews. 
Knox  joined  them,  with  private  pupils,  whom  he  was  then  in- 
structing. There  he  was  called  to  preach,  and  reluctantly  com- 
plied with  the  imperative  summons  of  his  brethren.  But  the 
castle  was  taken  by  the  French ;  he  was  carried  as  a  captive  to 

>  McCrie,  Life  of  Knox  (6th  ed.,  1839),  p.  30.  Mair  is  ridiculed  by  Buchanan. 
Lee,  i.  33,  34. 


302  THE   REFORMATION 

France,  and  experienced  hard  usage  there.  After  his  release, 
he  was  actively  employed  in  preaching,  principally  in  the  north 
of  England,  and  produced  a  great  effect  by  his  honesty,  earnest- 
ness, and  blunt  eloquence.  Not  fully  satisfied  with  the  eccle- 
siastical system  estabhshed  by  Cranmer,  he  declined  a  bishopric 
in  the  EngUsh  Church.  During  the  reign  of  Mary,  he  was  for 
a  while  at  Frankfort,  and  there  led  the  party  in  the  Church  of 
the  exiles,  who  were  opposed  to  the  use  of  the  English  Prayer- 
book,  without  certain  alterations  which  they  demanded.  The 
most  of  this  period  he  spent  at  Geneva,  in  the  society  of  Calvin 
and  the  other  Genevan  preachers,  and  in  active  labor  as  pastor 
of  a  church  composed  of  English  and  Scotch  residents.  It  was 
at  Geneva  that  he  put  forth  his  unlucky  pubhcation,  entitled 
the  "First  Blast  of  the  Trumpet  against  the  Monstrous  Regi- 
men of  Women";  a  work  which  was  specially  aimed,  as  he 
afterwards  explained  to  Mary  of  Scotland  and  to  EUzabeth,  at 
''the  bloody  Jezebel"  who  w^as  then  reigning  in  England,  but 
which  denied  the  right  of  women  to  rule  nations,  as  a  general 
proposition  in  ethics.  Notwithstanding  the  inconvenience  which 
this  doctrine  occasioned  him  afterwards,  he  had  the  manliness 
to  refuse  to  retract  it.  His  clumsy  attempts  at  apology,  for  he 
was  even  more  awkward  in  framing  apologies  than  Luther,  did 
not  conciliate  the  good  will  of  Ehzabeth. 

During  the  reign  of  Mary  of  England,  while  there  was  war 
between  France  and  Spain,  the  Scottish  exiles  were  able  to  come 
back  to  their  country.  Knox  returned  in  1555,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing year  the  Scottish  Protestant  lords  united  in  a  solemn 
Covenant  to  defend  their  religion  against  persecution.  The  gov- 
ernment once  more  renewed  its  repressive  measures,  and  Knox, 
who  had  held  his  meetings  in  various  places  with  much  effect, 
was  again  forced  to  leave.  The  Scottish  "Lords  of  the  Congre- 
gation" now  resolved  at  every  hazard  to  put  an  end  to  the 
persecution.  The  jealous  feeling  which  was  awakened  respect- 
ing the  designs  of  France  upon  Scotland,  and  which  was  aug- 
mented by  the  marriage  of  Mary  to  the  Dauphin,  combined  a 
powerful  party  against  the  Regent.  The  lords  and  the  Prot- 
estant preachers  stood  in  opposition  to  the  Queen  and  the  Catho- 
lic clergy.  Knox  returned  and  thundered  in  the  pulpit  against 
the  idolatry  of  the  Romish  worship.  In  Perth  a  sermon  in 
denunciation  of  the  worship  of  images  was  followed  by  a  rising 


JOHN    KNOX  303 

of  what  Knox  calls  "the  rascal  multitude/.'  which  demoHshed 
them,  and  pulled  down  the  monasteries.  The  same  thing  was 
done  elsewhere ;  and  this  iconoclasm  is  one  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  the  Scottish  Reform.  In  the  armed  contest  that 
ensued,  the  Regent  gained  such  advantages  that  Ehzabeth  was 
reluctantly  obliged  to  furnish  open  assistance  to  the  Protestant 
party,  to  save  Scotland  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  French. 
Her  position  was  an  embarrassing  one  to  herself.  She  detested 
Knox  and  his  principles.  She  abhorred,  especially,  the  poHtical 
theory  which  the  Scottish  Protestants  avowed  and  put  in  prac- 
tice, that  subjects  may  take  up  arms  against  their  sovereign. 
Yet  the  political  situation  was  such  that  she  was  obliged,  as  a 
choice  of  evils,  to  render  them  aid.  This  she  had  done  before 
clandestinely.  But  now  the  peril  was  so  imminent  that  she 
was  forced  to  come  out  in  the  face  of  day  and  send  her  troops  to 
the  assistance  of  the  lords.  Even  the  King  of  Spain,  the  cham- 
pion of  CathoHcism,  was  so  unwilling  to  see  the  French  masters 
of  Scotland  that  he  rejoiced  in  the  success  of  Ehzabeth 's  inter- 
ference. The  Treaty  of  Edinburgh,  by  which  the  French  were 
to  evacuate  Leith  and  leave  the  country  hmited  essentially  the 
prerogatives  of  the  Scottish  sovereign :  war  and  peace  could  not 
be  made  without  the  consent  of  the  Estates.  The  Queen-regent 
died  on  the  10th  of  June,  1560.  The  Estates  convened  in  August. 
The  Calvinistic  Confession  of  Faith  was  approved,  the  Roman 
CathoUc  reHgion  was  abohshed,  and  the  administering  of  the 
mass,  or  attendance  upon  it,  was  forbidden  —  the  penalty  for 
the  third  offense  being  death.  "On  the  morning  of  the  25th 
of  August,  1560,  the  Romish  hierarchy  was  supreme;  in  the 
evening  of  the  same  day,  Calvinistic  Protestantism  was  estab- 
lished in  its  stead."  ^  But  whether  the  Acts  of  Parhament  would 
abide  and  be  effectual  or  not  "depended  on  events  yet  to  come." 
Knox  and  his  fellow-ministers  found  themselves  at  variance 
with  their  lay  supporters  on  the  question  of  the  adoption  of  the 
"  First  Book  of  Discipline,  "  the  restraints  of  which  were  not  at 
all  acceptable  to  the  lords  and  lairds  who  had  received  the  Cal- 
vinistic doctrines  with  alacrity.  There  was  involved  in  this 
dispute  another  question  which  came  up  separately  —  that  of 
the  disposition  to  be  made  of  ecclesiastical  property.  Knox 
and  the  preachers  were  bent  upon  devoting  it  to  the  new  Church, 

»  Burton,  iv.  89. 


304  THE   REFORMATION 

for  the  sustenance  of  ministers,  schools,  and  universities.  To 
this  measure  the  lords  of  the  congregation,  among  whom  the 
desire  for  the  lands  and  possessions  which  they  were  able  to 
appropriate  at  the  overthrow  of  the  old  religion  was  quite  as 
potent  as  rehgious  zeal,  would  not  consent.  The  new  Church 
was  obliged  to  content  itself  with  a  portion  of  the  property  that 
had  belonged  to  the  old.  Knox,  who  was  skillful  in  penetrating 
the  poUtical  schemes  of  his  adversaries,  gave  his  lay  friends  credit 
for  more  sincerity  and  disinterestedness  than  they  really  had. 
It  was  a  weakness  that  sprang  out  of  his  own  simple-hearted 
honesty  and  zeal.  But  in  this  matter  of  the  "Book  of  Disci- 
pline" and  the  Church  property,  he  saw  their  motives,  and  gave 
free  utterance  to  his  wrath. 

Francis  II.,  the  young  husband  of  Queen  Mary,  died  on  the 
5th  of  December,  1560.  By  this  event,  Catharine  de  Medici, 
who  hated  Mary,  acquired  power,  and  set  about  the  work  of 
mediating  between  the  two  contending  parties  that  divided 
France  that  she  might  control  them  both,  Scotland  was  re- 
lieved from  danger  arising  out  of  the  ambitious  plans  of  the 
Guises.  Mary  returned  to  her  native  kingdom  to  assume  her 
crown.  We  need  not  give  credence  to  the  extravagant  praises 
of  such  admirers  as  Brantome,  who  accompanied  her  on  her 
voyage  to  Scotland;  but  that  she  was  beautiful  in  person,  of 
graceful  and  winning  manners,  quick-witted,  accompUshed,  with 
a  boundless  fund  of  energy,  there  is  no  doubt.  She  had  grown 
up  in  the  atmosphere  of  deceit  and  corruption  which  surrounded 
the  French  court,  in  the  society,  if  not  under  the  influence,  of 
Catharine  de  Medici.  Brantome  himself,  the  hcentious  chron- 
icler, and  Chatelar,  the  ill-starred  poet,  another  of  her  French 
attendants,  who  was  afterwards  beheaded  for  hiding  himself 
under  her  bed,  suggest  in  part  the  character  of  the  associations 
in  which  she  had  been  placed.  She  came  to  reign  over  a  king- 
dom where  the  strictest  form  of  Calvinism  had  been  made  the 
law  of  the  land.  No  contrast  can  be  more  striking  than  that 
presented  by  this  youthful  Queen,  fresh  from  the  gayeties  of 
her  "dear  France"  and  from  the  homage  of  the  courtiers  that 
thronged  her  steps,  and  the  homely  and  austere  surroundings 
of  her  new  abode.  Brantome  records  that  she  wept  for  hours 
together  on  the  voyage;  and  when  she  saw  the  horses  that  had 
been  sent  to  convey  her  from  Leith  to  Holyrood,  she  again  burst 


THE  RETURN  OF  QUEEN  MARY  305 

into  tears.  The  situation  was  such  that  any  active  opposition 
to  the  newly  estabUshed  religion  would  have  been  futile  and 
disastrous  to  herself.  The  Guises  were  absorbed  in  the  civil 
contest  in  France,  and  could  not  undo  the  work  which  the  Prot- 
estants in  Scotland  had  effected.  Whatever  hopes  Mary  had 
of  either  succeeding  or  supplanting  Elizabeth  would  have  been 
destroyed  by  a  premature  exhibition  of  an  anti-Protestant  poHcy. 
Mary  contented  herself  with  celebrating  mass  in  her  own  chapel 
and  in  other  places  where  she  sojourned.  The  principal  direc- 
tion of  affairs  was  left  in  the  hands  of  her  half-brother,  the  Earl 
of  Murray,  the  leader  of  the  Protestant  nobles.  She  even  united 
with  Murray  in  crushing  the  Earl  of  Huntley,  the  richest  and 
most  powerful  of  the  Catholic  lords,  who,  however,  had  not 
shown  himself  a  steady  or  disinterested  friend  of  the  old  reUgion. 
The  enthusiastic  admirers  and  apologists  of  Mary  maintain 
that  she  was  sincerely  in  favor  of  toleration.  They  would 
make  her  a  kind  of  apostle  of  reUgious  Uberty.  It  is  an  unrea- 
sonable stretch  of  charity,  however,  to  suppose  that  she  would 
not  from  the  beginning  have  rejoiced  in  the  restoration,  and, 
had  it  been  feasible,  the  forcible  restoration  of  the  old  religion. 
It  is  one  of  her  good  points  that  she  never  forsook  her  own  faith 
from  motives  of  self-interest,  and  never  swerved  from  her  fidelity 
to  it,  save  in  one  instance  and  for  a  brief  interval,  when  she  was 
carried  away  by  her  passion  for  Bothwell.  That  she  should 
"serve  the  time  and  still  commode  herself  discreetly  and  gently 
with  her  own  subjects,"  and  "in  effect  to  repose  most  on  them 
of  the  reformed  religion,"  was  the  poHcy  which  had  been 
sketched  for  her  in  France,  as  we  learn  from  her  faithful  friend, 
Sir  James  Melville.^  Her  letters  to  Pope  Pius  IV.,  and  to  her 
uncle,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  in  1563,  plainly  declare  her 
inclination  to  bring  back  the  old  religious  system  to  its  former 
supremacy.  She  steadfastly  withheld  her  assent  from  the  acts 
of  Parliament  which  changed  the  religion  of  the  country;  and 
it  was  an  unsettled  constitutional  question  whether  acts  of  this 
nature  were  valid  without  the  sovereign's  approval.  It  was 
natural,  as  it  was  evident,  that  Mary  "had  no  idea  of  risking 
her  position  in  Scotland  by  any  premature  display  of  zeal"  in 
behalf  of  her  rehgion  and  in  hostility  to  that  legally  sanctioned. 
"It  seems  to  have  been  her  hope  that  she  would  gather  round 

'  Memoirs,  p.  88. 


306  THE   REFORMATION 

her  in  time  a  party  strong  enough  to  effect  a  change  of  reUgion 
by  constitutional  means."  A  different  poHcy  was  not  com- 
mended to  her  by  her  counselors  abroad  or  by  the  Pope  him- 
self/ She  was  careful  to  prevent  any  overt  movement  against 
the  old  rehgion,  while  guarding  the  means,  should  an  opportunity 
occur,  to  secure  the  restoration  of  it.  Murray  conducted  the 
government  with  a  view  to  keep  in  check  both  of  the  reUgious 
parties,  to  maintain  the  Protestant  establishment,  but  at  the 
same  time  to  protect  Mary  in  the  personal  enjoyment  of  her 
own  worship. 

The  resolution  of  the  Queen  to  have  mass  in  her  chapel,  and 
the  secret  design,  which  Knox  more  and  more  beUeved  her  to 
cherish,  to  reestablish  popery,  found  in  that  reformer  an  immov- 
able antagonist.  His  "History  of  the  Reformation  of  Religion 
in  Scotland,"  that  quaint  and  original  work,  in  which  he  describes 
his  own  career,  narrates  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  great  con- 
flict, in  which  the  Queen,  with  her  rare  powers  of  fascination 
and  influence,  stood  on  one  side,  and  he  on  the  other.  When 
the  preparations  for  the  first  mass  were  perceived  (on  the  24th 
of  August,  1561),  "the  hearts  of  all  the  godly,"  he  says,  "began 
to  be  bolden;  and  men  began  openly  to  speak,  'shall  that  idol 
be  suffered  again  to  take  place  within  this  realm?  It  shall 
not.'"^  It  was  proposed  that  the  "idolater  priest  should  die 
the  death  according  to  God's  law."  But  Murray  guarded  the 
chapel  door  "that  none  should  have  entrance  to  trouble  the 
priest."  Murray's  excuse  was,  however,  "that  he  would  stop  all 
Scotsmen  to  enter  the  mass."  After  a  little  while,  the  Protestant 
lords,  out  of  respect  to  the  Queen's  declaration  that  her  con- 
science bound  her  to  adhere  to  the  obnoxious  rite,  were  disposed 
to  permit  her  to  do  so.  They  were  bewitched,  as  Knox  thought, 
by  the  enchantress;  and  he  inveighed  in  his  pulpit  against 
idolatry,  declaring  that  one  mass  was  "more  fearful  unto  him 
than  if  ten  thousand  armed  enemies  were  landed  in  any  part  of 
the  realm,  of  purpose  to  suppress  the  holy  religion."  The 
Queen  resolved  to  try  the  effect  of  a  personal  interview,  and  of 
her  skill  in  reasoning,  upon  this  most  intractable  and  powerful 
of  all  the  professors  of  the  new  faith.  None  were  present,  within 
hearing,  but  Murray.     It  was  the  first  of  the  memorable  con- 

'  Cambridge  Modern  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  267. 
2  Knox,  History,  etc.  (Glasgow,  1832),  p.  247. 


KNOX  AND  QUEEN  MARY  307 

ferences  or  debates  which  Knox  had  with  the  Queen.  We  fol- 
low his  own  narrative.  "The  Queen,"  he  says,  "accused  him, 
that  he  had  raised  a  part  of  her  subjects  against  her  mother 
and  against  herself;  that  he  had  written  a  book  against  her 
just  authority  —  she  meant  the  Treatise  against  the  Regimen 
of  Women  —  which  she  had  and  should  cause  the  most  learned 
in  Europe  to  write  against;  that  he  was  the  cause  of  great  se- 
dition and  great  slaughter  in  England;  and  that  it  was  said  to 
her  that  all  that  he  did  was  by  necromancy.  To  which  the  said 
John  answered,  'Madam,  it  may  please  your  Majesty  patiently 
to  hear  my  simple  answers.  And  first,'  said  he,  'if  to  teach  the 
truth  of  God  in  sincerity,  if  to  rebuke  idolatry,  and  to  will  a 
people  to  worship  God  according  to  His  Word,  be  to  raise  sub- 
jects against  their  princes,  then  cannot  I  be  excused ;  for  it  has 
pleased  God  of  His  mercy  to  make  me  one,  among  many,  to  dis- 
close unto  this  realm  the  vanity  of  the  papistical  religion,  and 
the  deceit,  pride,  and  tyranny  of  that  Roman  Antichrist.'"  He 
began  with  this  perspicuous  statement  of  his  position.  He  went 
on  to  say  that  the  true  knowledge  of  God  promotes  obedience 
to  rulers,  and  that  Mary  had  received  as  unfeigned  obedience 
from  "such  as  profess  Christ  Jesus,"  as  ever  her  ancestors  had 
received  from  their  bishops.  As  to  his  book,  he  was  ready  to 
retract  if  he  could  be  confuted,  but  he  felt  able  to  sustain  its 
doctrines  against  any  ten  who  might  attempt  to  impugn  them. 
Knox  had  an  unbounded  confidence  in  his  cause,  and  no  distrust 
of  his  own  prowess  in  the  defense  of  it.  "You  think,"  said 
Mary,  "that  I  have  no  just  authority?"  To  this  direct  inquiry, 
he  replied  by  referring  to  Plato's  "Republic,"  in  which  the  phi- 
losopher "damned  many  things  that  then  were  maintained  in 
the  world";  yet  this  did  not  prevent  him  from  living  quietly 
under  the  systems  of  government  which  he  found  existing.  "I 
have  communicated,"  he  added,  "my  judgment  to  the  world; 
if  the  realm  finds  no  inconveniency  in  the  regimen  of  a  woman, 
that  which  they  approve  I  shall  not  further  disallow,  than  within 
my  own  heart,  but  shall  be  as  well  content  to  live  under  your 
grace,  as  Paul  was  to  live  under  Nero.  And  my  hope  is  that  as 
long  as  that  ye  defile  not  your  hands  with  the  blood  of  the  saints 
of  God,  that  neither  I  nor  that  book  shall  either  hurt  you  or 
your  authority;  for,  in  very  deed.  Madam,  that  book  was  writ- 
ten most  especially  against  that  wicked  Jezebel  of  England." 


308  THE   REFORMATION 

"But,"  said  the  Queen,  "ye  speak  of  women  in  general."  To 
this  Knox  responded  that  he  could  be  charged  with  making  no 
disturbance,  but  that  his  preaching  in  England  and  elsewhere 
had  promoted  quietness.  As  to  the  charge  of  necromancy,  he 
could  endure  that,  seeing  that  his  Master  was  accused  of  being 
"possessed  with  Beelzebub."  Leaving  Knox's  offensive  book, 
Mary  reminded  him  that  God  commands  subjects  to  obey  their 
princes,  and  asked  him  how  he  reconciled  his  conduct,  in  per- 
suading the  people  "  to  receive  another  religion  than  their  princes 
can  allow,"  with  that  precept.  Knox  replied  that  subjects  are 
not  "bound  to  frame  their  religion  according  to  the  appetite  of 
their  princes,"  and  appealed  to  the  example  of  the  Israelites  in 
Egypt,  and  to  the  example  of  Daniel,  on  which  he  dilated  at 
some  length.  "Yet,"  said  she;  "none  of  them  raised  the  sword 
against  their  princes."  Knox  answered  that  still  they  denied 
obedience  to  their  mandates.  Mary  was  not  to  be  driven  from 
her  point,  and  replied :  "  But  yet  they  resisted  not  by  the  sword." 
"God,"  said  he,  " Madam,  had  not  given  them  the  power  and  the 
means."  "Think  ye,"  said  she,  "that  subjects  having  power 
may  resist  their  princes?"  "If  their  princes  exceed  their 
bounds,"  said  he,  "Madam,  and  do  against  that  wherefore  they 
should  be  obeyed,  it  is  no  doubt  but  they  may  be  resisted,  even 
by  power;"  and  he  compared  this  resistance  to  the  restraint 
imposed  by  children  upon  a  frenzied  father.  "At  these  words, 
the  Queen  stood,  as  it  were,  amazed,  more  than  a  quarter  of  an 
hour;  her  countenance  altered,  so  that  Lord  James  began  to 
entreat  her  and  to  demand,  'What  has  offended  you.  Madam?' 
At  length  she  said,  'Well,  then,  I  perceive  that  my  subjects  shall 
obey  you,  and  not  me;  and  shall  do  what  they  list,  and  not 
what  I  command:  and  so  must  I  be  subject  to  them,  and  not 
they  to  me.'"  Knox  demurred  to  this  conclusion.  "My  tra- 
vail is  that  both  princes  and  subjects  obey  God."  Kings  and 
queens  were  to  be  foster-fathers  and  nurses  to  the  Kirk.  Ex- 
cited by  the  debate,  Mary  went,  perhaps,  further  than  she  had 
designed.  "But  ye  are  not  the  Kirk  that  I  will  nurse.  I  will 
defend  the  Kirk  of  Rome,  for  it  is,  I  think,  the  true  Kirk  of  God." 
"Your  will,"  said  he,  "Madam,  is  no  reason,  neither  doth  your 
thought  make  that  Roman  harlot  to  be  the  true  and  immacu- 
late spouse  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  wonder  not.  Madam,  that  I 
call  Rome  a  harlot ;  for  that  Kirk  is  altogether  polluted  with  all 


KNOX  AND  QUEEN  MARY  309 

kind  of  spiritual  fornication,  as  well  in  doctrine  as  in  manners." 
He  offered  to  prove  that  the  "Kirk  of  the  Jews,"  when  it  cruci- 
fied Jesus,  was  not  so  far  removed  from  true  religion  "as  that 
Kirk  of  Rome  is  declined."  "My  conscience,"  said  Mary,  "is 
not  so."  Conscience,  he  answered,  requires  knowledge;  and  he 
proceeded  to  say  that  she  had  enjoyed  no  true  teaching.  De- 
scending to  particulars,  he  pronounced  the  mass  "the  invention 
of  man,"  and  therefore  "an  abomination  before  God."  To  his 
harangue,  Mary  said,  "If  they  were  here  whom  I  have  heard, 
they  would  answer  you."  Knox  expressed  the  wish  that  the 
"most  learned  Papist  in  Europe"  were  present,  that  she  might 
learn  "the  vanity  of  the  papistical  religion,"  and  how  little 
ground  it  had  in  the  Word  of  God.  Knox  departed,  wishing 
that  she  might  be  as  great  a  blessing  to  Scotland  "  as  ever  Deb- 
orah was  in  the  commonwealth  of  Israel."  He  remarks  that  she 
"continued  in  her  massing;  and  despised  and  quietly  mocked 
all  exhortation."  Being  asked  by  his  friends  at  the  time  what 
he  thought  of  her,  he  said,  "  If  there  be  not  in  her  a  proud  mind, 
a  crafty  wit,  and  an  indurate  heart  against  God  and  his  truth, 
my  judgment  faileth  me."  In  Knox,  as  he  appears  in  these 
interviews,  one  may  behold  the  incarnation  of  the  democratic 
spirit  of  Calvinism.  Close  attention  to  the  verbal  combat  of 
the  Queen  and  Knox  does  not  warrant  either  the  inference  that 
he  was  of  a  mind  to  drive  her,  for  being  a  Catholic,  from  the 
throne,  or  that  she  cherished  an  intent  to  exterminate  the  Church 
protected  by  the  law  of  the  Land. 

On  another  occasion  he  was  summoned  to  the  presence  of 
the  Queen,  in  consequence  of  his  preaching  about  the  dancing 
at  Holy  rood.  Knox  said  that  in  the  presence  of  her  Council  she 
was  grave,  but  "how  soon  soever  the  French  fillocks,  fiddlers, 
and  others  of  that  band  gat  into  the  house  alone,  then  might  be 
seen  skipping  not  very  comely  for  honest  women."  It  must 
be  remarked  that  the  dances  in  vogue  then  would  not  now  be 
deemed  very  comely,  even  by  liberal  critics.^  "He  was  called 
and  accused,  as  one  that  had  irreverently  spoken  of  the  Queen, 
and  that  travailed  to  bring  her  into  hatred  and  contempt  of  the 
people."  "The  Queen,"  he  says,  "made  a  long  harangue,"  to 
which  he  replied  by  repeating  exactly  what  he  had  said  in  the 
pulpit.    In  the  course  of  the  conversation  he  freely  expressed 

1  Burton,  iv.  209. 


310  THE   REFORMATION 

his  opinion  of  her  uncles,  whom  he  styled  "  enemies  to  God  and 
unto  his  son  Jesus  Christ,"  and  declined  her  request  that  he 
would  come  and  make  what  criticisms  he  had  to  make  upon  her 
conduct  to  her  personally.  He  could  not  wait  upon  individ- 
uals, but  it  was  his  function  "  to  rebuke  the  sins  and  vices  of  all" 
in  his  sermons,  which  he  invited  her  to  come  and  hear.  He  was 
too  shrewd  to  consent  to  be  silent  in  public  for  the  sake  of  the 
privilege  of  conversing  with  her  in  private.  She  showed  her 
displeasure.  But  "the  said  John  departed  with  a  reasonable 
merry  countenance ;  whereat  some  Papists,  offended,  said,  '  He  is 
not  afraid;'  which  heard  of  him,  he  answered,  *Why  should  the 
pleasing  face  of  a  gentlewoman  fear  me?  I  have  looked  in  the 
faces  of  many  angry  men,  and  yet  have  not  been  afraid  above 
measure.'  " 

The  mass  and  auricular  confession  were  not  wholly  given  up, 
especially  in  the  western  districts  south  of  the  Clyde.  "The 
brethren,"  says  Knox,  "determined  to  put  to  their  own  hands," 
and  no  longer  wait  for  King  or  Council,  but  "execute  the  pun- 
ishment that  God  had  appointed  to  idolaters  in  his  law,  by  such 
means  as  they  might,  wherever  they  should  be  apprehended," 
The  brethren  had  begun  this  work  of  executing  the  law  for  them- 
selves, when  the  Queen,  who  was  at  Lochleven,  sent  for  Knox. 
He  defended  the  proceeding.  Where  kings  neglect  their  duty 
of  executing  the  laws,  the  people  may  do  it  for  them,  and  even 
restrain  kings,  he  added,  in  case  they  spare  the  wicked  and 
oppress  the  innocent.  "The  examples,"  he  said,  "are  evident, 
for  Samuel  feared  not  to  slay  Agag,  the  fat  and  delicate  King  of 
Amalek,  whom  King  Saul  had  saved :  neither  spared  Elias  Jeze- 
bel's false  prophets  and  Baal's  priests,  albeit  that  King  T^iab 
was  present.  Phineas  was  no  magistrate,  and  yet  feared  he  not 
to  strike  Cozbi  and  Zimri"  — and  he  specified  in  the  plainest 
words  the  sin  of  which  they  were  guilty.  He  informed  Mary 
that  she  must  fulfill  her  part  of  "the  mutual  contract,"  if  she 
expected  to  get  obedience  from  her  subjects.^  "The  said  John 
left  her,"  but,  much  to  his  surprise,  early  the  next  morning,  she 
sent  for  him  again.  He  met  her  "at  the  hawking,  by  West 
Kincross.  Whether  it  was  the  night's  sleep,  or  deep  dissimula- 
tion, that  made  her  to  forget  her  former  anger,  wise  men  may 
doubt."     She  conversed  with  him  in  a  familiar  and  confidential 

>  History,   p.  285. 


KNOX  AND  QUEEN  MARY  311 

style,  asking  his  good  offices  to  restore  peace  between  the  Earl 
of  Argyle  and  his  wife ;  and  wound  up  the  conference  by  alluding 
to  the  interview  of  the  previous  night,  and  by  promising  "to 
minister  justice"  as  he  had  required.  Many  arrests  were  actu- 
ally made,  apparently  in  pursuance  of  her  promise.  But  from 
about  this  time  (1563),  symptoms  of  a  Romish  reaction  were 
manifest.  The  Queen's  influence  began  to  have  its  effect.  Knox 
was  not  ignorant  of  her  communications  with  France,  Spain,  and 
the  Papal  Court;  for  he  had  his  own  correspondents  on  the 
Continent.^  From  this  time  Knox  and  the  Queen  were  really 
engaged  in  a  contest,  each  for  the  extermination  of  the  other.^ 
When  it  was  known  that  she  was  considering  the  question  of  a 
marriage  with  the  Archduke  of  Austria,  or  with  Don  Carlos,  the 
son  of  Philip  II.,  and  when  Knox  found  the  Protestant  nobles 
lukewarm  or  indifferent  on  the  subject,  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
thunder  in  the  pulpit  against  the  scheme,  and  to  predict  direful' 
consequences,  should  the  nobles  allow  it  to  be  carried  out.  Ex- 
asperated at  this  new  interference,  the  Queen  summoned  him  to 
her  presence,  and  with  passionate  outbursts  of  weeping  de- 
nounced his  impertinent  meddling  with  affairs  that  did  not  belong 
to  him.  Knox  maintained  his  imperturbable  coolness,  although 
he  declared  that  he  had  no  pleasure  in  seeing  her  weep,  since 
that  he  could  not,  without  pain,  see  the  tears  of  his  own  boys 
when  he  chastised  them.  Dismissed  from  the  Queen's  presence, 
he  was  detained  for  a  while  in  the  adjacent  room,  where  he 
"merrily"  uttered  a  quaint  homily  to  the  ladies  of  the  court  on 
their  "gay  gear"  and  on  the  havoc  that  death  would  make  with 
their  flesh  and  all  their  finery ;  a  speech  in  a  tone  that  has  been 
aptly  likened  to  that  of  the  soliloquy  of  the  grave-digger  in 
Hamlet. 

In  the  summer  of  1563,  during  the  absence  of  the  Queen 
from  Edinburgh,  her  followers  who  were  left  behind  attempted 
to  hold  mass  in  the  chapel  at  Holyrood.  An  unusual  number 
from  the  town  joined  them.  "Divers  of  the  brethren,  being 
sore  offended,  consulted  how  to  redress  that  enormity."  They 
resorted  to  the  spot  in  order  to  note  down  the  names  of  such  as 
might  come  to  participate  in  the  unlawful  rite.  It  appears  that 
the  chapel  door  was  burst  open,  "whereat,  the  priest  and  the 
French  dames,  being  affrayed,  made  the  shout  to  be  sent  to  the 

»  Burton,  iv.  219.  2  11,1^^ 


312  THE   REFORMATION 

town."  Two  of  the  party  were  indicted  "for  carrying  pistols 
within  the  burgh,  convention  of  Heges  at  the  palace,  and  inva- 
sion of  the  Queen's  servants."  Knox,  who  had  been  clothed 
with  authority  to  summon  the  faithful  together  in  any  grave 
emergency,  issued  a  circular  calling  upon  them  to  be  in  Edin- 
burgh on  the  day  which  had  been  designated  for  the  trial.  The 
Queen  imagined  that  she  had  now  caught  him  in  a  plain  viola- 
tion of  the  law.  He  was  required  to  appear  before  her  and  the 
Privy  Council,  to  which  were  joined  a  considerable  number  of 
government  officers  and  nobles.  He  gives  a  graphic  descrip- 
tion of  the  scene  and  of  the  colloquies  that  took  place.  He 
states  also  that  "the  bruit  rising  in  the  town  that  John  Knox 
was  sent  for  by  the  Queen,  the  brethren  of  the  Kirk  followed  in 
such  number  that  the  inner  close  was  full,  and  all  the  stairs,  even 
to  the  chamber  door  where  the  Queen  and  Council  sat."  This 
gathering  of  his  supporters  would,  of  itself,  disincline  the  Coun- 
cil to  molest  him;  but,  independently  of  the  immediate  danger 
attending  such  a  step,  the  Protestant  lords,  the  subtle  and  un- 
principled Lethington,  for  example,  however  they  might  charge 
him  with  fanaticism,  were  not  at  all  disposed  to  assume  a  posi- 
tion of  hostility  towards  him.  He  had  leave  to  depart,  but  did 
not  go  until  he  had  turned  to  the  Queen  and  prayed  that  "  God 
would  purge  her  heart  from  Popery  and  preserve  her  from  the 
counsel  of  flatterers."  It  is  a  mark  of  the  steadfast  honesty  of 
Knox  that  he  broke  off  intercourse,  for  a  long  time,  with  Murray, 
whom  he  honored  and  loved,  but  whom,  in  conjunction  with 
the  other  lords,  he  blamed  for  neglecting,  in  the  Parliament  of 
1563,  the  first  Parliament  after  the  Queen's  arrival,  to  ratify  the 
treaty  of  peace  made  in  1560,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Prot- 
estant religion.^  The  principal  business  done  at  that  session  was 
to  give  a  legal  security  to  the  appropriations  that  had  been  made 
of  the  church  lands,  by  which  the  nobles  had  so  much  profited. 
It  was  a  short  time  after  this  meeting  of  Parliament  that  Knox 
preached  the  famous  sermon  to  which  we  have  referred  on  the 
Queen's  marriage. 

The  gloomy  prospects  of  the  cause  of  reform  led  Knox  to 
adopt  a  form  of  public  prayer  for  the  Queen,  in  which  the  Al- 
mighty was  besought  to  "deliver  her  from  the  bondage  and 
thraldom  of  Satan,"  and  thus  save  the  realm  "from  that  plague 

1  McCrie,  p.  255. 


KNOX  AND  QUEEN  MARY  313 

and  vengeance  that  inevitably  follows  idolatry,"  as  well  as  her 
own  soul  from  ''that  eternal  damnation  which  abides  all  obsti- 
nate and  impenitent  unto  the  end."  At  an  assembly  of  the 
Kirk  in  the  summer  of  1564,  the  propriety  of  this  prayer  came 
up  for  discussion.  At  this  meeting  the  lay  lords,  Murray,  Ham- 
ilton, Argyle,  Morton,  Lethington,  and  others,  entered  into 
debate  with  the  clerical  leaders  on  this  question  and  on  the 
proper  treatment  of  the  Queen.  But  Knox  and  his  associates 
asserted  that  the  mass  is  idolatry,  and,  by  Old  Testament  law 
and  precedents,  must  be  punished  with  death.  No  vote  was 
taken ;  but  it  was  soon  evident  to  the  lay  leaders  that  there  was 
no  room  for  a  middle  party,  and  no  hope  that  the  Queen  would 
abandon  her  "idolatry." 

It  is  obvious  that  Knox  and  his  followers  were  no  disciples 
of  the  doctrine  of  toleration.  Two  things,  however,  deserve  to 
be  noticed.  First,  there  was  no  kingdom  where  Roman  Catho- 
lics having  the  relative  strength  of  the  Calvinists  of  Scotland 
would  have  endured  for  a  moment  a  Protestant  sovereign.  The 
story  of  Henry  IV.  of  France  shows  what  the  CathoHc  party 
demanded,  even  when  there  was  a  powerful  minority  opposed 
to  them.  Secondly,  Knox  and  his  associates  were  well  convinced 
that  the  Queen,  notwithstanding  her  fair  professions,  only  waited 
for  a  favorable  opportunity  to  extirpate  them  and  to  bring  back 
the  papal  system,  the  abolition  of  which  she  did  not  concede  to 
be  legal.  But,  apart  from  these  considerations,  the  Roman 
Catholic  rites,  in  the  eyes  of  Knox,  were  idolatry  which  must 
be  capitally  punished  and  utterly  suppressed;  otherwise  the 
judgments  of  heaven  would  fall  on  the  land.  He  attributed 
the  partial  failure  of  the  crops  to  the  wrath  of  God  at  the  Queen's 
mass. 

The  Protestants  had  a  feeling  of  insecurity,  a  feeling  that 
their  cause  was  being  cautiously  undermined.  They  watched 
with  eager  attention  the  various  negotiations  having  respect  to 
the  Queen's  marriage.  Had  they  been  fully  aware  of  the  efforts 
that  were  made  to  effect  a  marriage  between  Mary  and  Don 
Carlos  of  Spain,  which  were  defeated  by  the  machinations  of 
Catharine  de  Medici,  through  her  jealousy  of  the  house  of  Guise, 
they  would  have  been  filled  with  alarm  and  indignation.  The 
propositions  of  EHzabeth,  including  that  of  a  marriage  of  Mary 
to  Leicester,  fell  to  the  ground.     How  far  the  EngUsh  Queen 


314  THE   REFORMATION 

was  sincere  in  them  it  is  impossible  to  say,  since  even  her  most 
sagacious  advisers  could  not  fathom  her  dupUcity.  One  obsta- 
cle in  the  way  of  Ehzabeth's  matrimonial  schemes  for  Mary  was 
the  steady  refusal  of  the  former  definitely  to  guarantee  the  suc- 
cession to  her  sister  of  Scotland.  She  meant  to  retain  this  safe- 
guard for  her  Ufe  in  her  own  hands.  All  plans  of  this  sort  were 
cut  off  by  Mary's  marriage  with  Darnley.  It  was  a  case  of 
mutual  love  at  first  sight.  Darnley  was  Mary's  cousin,  and  the 
grandson  of  Margaret,  the  sister  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  of  the  Earl 
of  Angus,  whom  she  married  after  the  death  of  her  first  husband, 
James  IV.  Mary  was  charmed  with  his  personal  appearance 
—  his  tall  form,  the  breadth  of  his  shoulders,  and  his  smooth, 
handsome  face.  Darnley  was  a  Catholic.  Murray  and  the  Prot- 
estants opposed  the  marriage  as  a  decisive  step  towards  the 
restoration  of  the  old  reUgion.  They  complained  that  the  laws 
against  idolatry  were  not  enforced.  Mary  had  taken  a  husband 
without  consulting  her  Parhament,  which,  if  not  illegal,  was  inde- 
corous; and  she  had  proclaimed  him  as  King  of  Scots,  which 
was  considered  an  unconstitutional  act.^  The  Queen  had  mar- 
ried against  the  remonstrance  of  Elizabeth  and  had  incurred 
her  displeasure.  The  hopes  of  Mary  centered  in  the  King  of 
Spain  and  her  other  friends  on  the  Continent.  The  discontented 
barons,  with  Murray  at  their  head,  took  up  arms,  but  not  receiv- 
ing the  promised  aid  from  England,  their  forces  were  dispersed, 
and  the  leaders  were  compelled  to  fly  across  the  border.  Just 
at  this  juncture,  it  was  apprehended  that  France  and  Spain 
would  join  hands  in  a  common  attack  upon  Protestantism.^  It 
was  supposed,  though  erroneously,  that  Catharine  de  Medici  and 
her  son  had  signed  a  league  at  Bayonne,  at  the  instigation  of 
Alva,  for  this  end.  It  was  beheved,  also,  that  Mary  had  for- 
mally attached  her  signature  to  the  same  bond.  The  political 
situation  was  so  perilous  for  England  and  English  Protestantism 
that  EHzabeth  was  led  falsely  to  disavow  all  connection  with 
Murray  and  his  enterprise.  Had  Darnley  been  an  able  man,  and 
had  his  Queen  been  possessed  of  a  wisdom  and  self-control  equal 
to  her  acuteness  and  vivacity,  the  subsequent  history  of  Scotland, 
and  of  England  too,  would  have  been  essentially  altered.    But  it 

»  Burton,  v.  279. 

*  Mary  had  applied  to  the  King  of  Spain  for  help  against  her  subjects.     Hos- 
ack,  Alary  and  her  Acciisers,  i.  114. 


THE   QUEEN'S   MARRIAGE   WITH    DARNLEY  315 

took  but  a  short  time  for  the  incompatibility  between  Mary  and 
Darnley  to  manifest  itself.  Elated  by  his  elevation,  he  offended 
the  nobles  by  his  insolence  and  airs  of  superiority.  His  drunk- 
enness and  other  low  vices  soon  disgusted,  and  at  length  com- 
pletely ahenated,  his  wife.  Mary  was  imprudent  enough  to 
bestow  so  many  marks  of  favor  on  Rizzio,  an  Italian  whom  she 
had  made  her  Secretary,  that  he  became  an  object  of  bitter 
hatred  to  the  nobihty.  They  despised  him  as  an  upstart  and 
an  adventurer  who  had  usurped  that  place  in  the  counsels 
and  good  graces  of  the  Queen  which  belonged  to  themselves. 
Rizzio  had  promoted  the  marriage  with  Darnley.  He  was  con- 
sidered one  of  the  props  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faction.  Par- 
liament was  about  to  assemble,  "the  spiritual  estate,"  to  quote 
from  a  letter  of  Mary  herself,  "  being  placed  there  in  the  ancient 
manner,  tending  to  have  done  some  good  anent  restoring  the 
auld  religion,  and  to  have  proceeded  against  our  rebels  accord- 
ing to  their  demerits."^  The  estates  of  Murray  and  his  con- 
federates were  to  be  forfeited.  On  the  9th  of  March,  1566,  Rizzio 
was  murdered  as  the  result  of  a  plot  of  which  Darnley  on  the  one 
part,  who  was  moved  by  jealousy  of  Rizzio,  and  Ruthven  and 
other  Protestant  lords  on  the  other,  who  were  enraged  at  the 
influence  acquired  by  Rizzio,  were  the  authors  and  executors. 
Darnley  was  angry  that  the  crown  matrimonial  was  withheld 
from  him.  It  was  stipulated  in  a  secret  agreement  of  Darnley 
with  the  lords  that  the  banished  nobles  should  be  restored  and 
the  Protestant  religion  maintained.  Rizzio  was  dragged  out  of 
the  apartment  in  which  the  Queen  was  supping,  and  slain  in  the 
adjacent  room.  It  was  only  three  months  before  the  birth  of 
the  Queen's  son,  afterwards  James  VI.,  whose  life,  as  well  as 
the  Ufe  of  his  mother,  were  exposed  to  imminent  peril  by  this 
scene  of  brutal  violence.  The  Queen's  power  of  dissembling 
now  served  her  well.  She  won  the  feeble  Darnley  to  a  coop- 
eration with  her  scheme,  and  escaping  on  Monday,  at  midnight, 
from  Holyrood  —  the  murder  of  Rizzio  was  on  Saturday  even- 
ing —  she  rode  for  five  hours  on  horseback,  and  reached  the 
strong  fortress  of  Dunbar  at  dayhght.  The  banished  lords  had 
appeared  in  Edinburgh  on  Sunday,  the  day  after  the  murder. 
The  new  turn  that  was  given  to  affairs  by  the  Queen's  bold  and 

'  Letter  of  Mary  to  her  Councillor,  the  Bishop  of  Ross,  in  Labanoff,  i.  342.     See 
Burton,  iv.  304. 


316  THE   REFORMATION 

successful  movement  obliged  Morton,  and  the  other  lords  who 
had  been  directly  participant  in  the  destruction  of  Rizzio,  to 
take  refuge  for  a  while  in  England.  The  others,  including 
Murray,  were  received  into  favor.  From  this  time,  as  we  follow 
this  tragic  history,  we  tread  at  almost  every  step  upon  disputed 
ground.  Around  these  transactions  there  have  gathered  the 
conflicting  sympathies  of  religious  parties,  not  to  speak  of  the 
personal  feehngs  which  cluster  about  events  of  pathetic  inter- 
est, events  which  have  been  selected  by  great  poets  as  an  appro- 
priate theme  for  the  drama.  But  there  are  some  leading  facts 
that  are  fully  ascertained,  and  whether  they  are  in  every  case 
admitted  or  not,  they  cannot  plausibly  be  disputed.  One  of 
these  facts  is  the  complete  estrangement  of  the  Queen  from 
Darnley.  He  had  been  mean  and  treacherous  enough  to  ap- 
pear before  the  council  and  solemnly  to  affirm,  what  everybody 
knew  to  be  false,  that  he  had  had  no  concern  in  the  slaying  of 
Rizzio.  He  incurred  the  vindictive  hatred  of  all  who  had  been 
his  confederates  in  the  commission  of  that  act.  But  Mary  took 
no  pains  to  conceal,  she  rather  took  pains  to  manifest  publicly, 
her  thorough  cUslike  and  her  contempt  for  him.  He  was  despised 
and  shunned  by  all.  The  birth  of  his  son,  afterwards  James  VI. 
of  England  and  James  I.  of  Scotland,  which  took  place  in  Edin- 
burgh Castle,  on  the  19th  of  June,  1566,  did  not  affect  the  rela- 
tions of  his  parents  to  one  another.  The  repugnance  with 
which  Mary  regarded  Darnley  was  known  to  everybody,  and  was 
reported  to  foreign  courts.  Another  fact  is  her  growing  fond- 
ness for  Bothwell,  which  was,  also,  a  matter  of  common  obser- 
vation, and  was  manifested  by  unmistakable  signs.  Bothwell 
was  a  brave,  adventurous,  resolute  man,  with  some  exterior 
polish  acquired  at  the  court  of  France,  but  unscrupulous  and 
unprincipled.  Though  connected  with  the  Protestant  side,  he 
had  stood  faithfully  by  the  Queen  Regent,  Mary's  mother,  and 
by  Mary  herself.  He  had  taken  no  part  in  the  murder  of  Rizzio, 
but  on  that  occasion  had  himself  escaped  from  Holyrood,  and 
had  lent  her  timely  and  effective  assistance.  Although  the  fact 
is  still  questioned  by  Mary's  enthusiastic  defenders,  it  is  never- 
theless established  that  her  attachment  to  him  grew  into  an 
overpowering  passion.^  Bothwell  had  a  wife  to  whom  he  had 
not  long  been  married;   Mary  had  a  husband.     Such  were  the 

1  Burton,  iv.  324  seq. 


THE  MURDER  OF  DARNLEY  317 

hindrances  in  the  way  of  their  union.  It  was  affirmed  subse- 
quently by  Argyle  and  Huntley  that  they,  together  with  Both- 
well,  Murray,  and  Lethington,  used  the  disaffection  of  the  Queen 
towards  her  husband  as  a  means  of  obtaining  her  consent  to 
the  pardon  and  return  of  Morton  and  others,  who  were  in  ban- 
ishment on  account  of  their  agency  in  the  death  of  Rizzio.  They 
began  by  proposing  to  her  a  divorce,  but  "the  one  thing  clear 
is  that  a  promise  was  made  to  rid  the  Queen  of  her  unendurable 
husband,  and  that  without  a  divorce."  ^  Morton  was  allowed 
to  return,  but  refused  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  plot,  unless 
he  were  furnished  with  a  written  authorization  from  Mary,  which 
could  not  be  procured.^  Murray  claimed  with  truth  that  he 
never  entered  into  an  engagement  for  the  murder  of  Darnley; 
but  Lethington,  according  to  the  statement  of  Argyle  and  Hunt- 
ley, had  said  that  Murray  would  "look  through  his  fingers"  — 
that  is,  stand  off  and  not  interfere.  Whether  Murray  was  aware 
of  the  plot,  and  was  willing  to  have  it  succeed  by  other  hands 
than  his  own,  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  determined.  The 
Queen,  just  before,  gave  a  striking  proof  of  her  affection  for 
Bothwell  by  paying  him  a  visit  when  he  was  ill,  at  the  peril  of 
her  own  life.  Darnley  had  been  taken  ill  and  went  to  Glasgow, 
where  he  was  cared  for  under  the  direction  of  his  father,  the  old 
Earl  of  Lennox.  The  Queen  announced  her  purpose  to  visit 
him.  She  made  the  visit,  and  after  they  met,  a  conversation 
occurred  between  Darnley  and  Crawford,  a  gentleman  in  the 
service  of  Lennox,  whom  the  latter  had  instructed  to  observe 
and  report  whatever  he  saw  and  heard.  The  Queen  had  ar- 
ranged with  Darnley  that  he  should  be  taken  to  Craigmillar  Castle 
and  there  receive  medical  treatment.  Both  Crawford  and  Darn- 
ley expressed  to  one  another  their  dislike  of  this  arrangement,  in 
such  terms  as  imply  a  suspicion  that  evil,  even  murder,  might 
possibly  be  intended.  Darnley  expressed  to  Mary  his  penitence 
and  his  ardent  desire  for  the  restoration  of  the  old  relations 
between  them.  She  met  his  advances  apparently  in  a  friendly 
spirit,  and  gave  him  fair  promises.  A  few  days  later  he  was 
removed  to  Edinburgh,  but  instead  of  being  taken  to  Craig- 
millar, or  to  Holyrood,  he  was  conveyed  to  a  place  close  to  the 

*  See  Burton,  iv.  332  seq. 

^  Morton,  in  the  confession  that  he  made  before  his  execution,  owned  that  he 
was  urged  by  Bothwell  to  join  in  the  plot,  and  said,  as  a  reason  for  not  reveal- 
ing it  to  the  Queen,    "She  was  the  doer  thereof." 


318  THE   REFORMATION 

city  wall,  called  the  Kirk-of-field,  to  an  uninhabited  house  that 
belonged  to  Robert  Balfour,  a  dependent  of  Bothwell,  several 
rooms  of  which  had  been  fitted  up  for  the  King's  reception. 
The  Queen  slept  several  nights  in  the  room  under  Darnley's 
apartment;  but  on  Sunday  evening,  the  9th  of  February,  1567, 
she  left  his  bedside  to  attend  the  festivities  connected  with  the 
wedding  of  one  of  her  servants  at  Holyrood.  That  night  the 
house  was  blown  up  with  gunpowder,  which  Bothwell  and  his 
followers  had  placed  in  the  Queen's  bedroom,  under  Darnley. 
His  body  was  found  at  some  distance  from  the  house.  Whether 
he  was  strangled,  or  otherwise  killed,  before  the  explosion  or 
not,  is  still  a  controverted  point.  The  conspirators  had  pro- 
vided themselves  with  false  keys  and  had  deliberately  perfected 
all  their  arrangements.  Whether  or  not  the  Queen  was  privy 
to  the  murder,  her  conduct  afterwards  was  sufficiently  impru- 
dent to  confirm  the  worst  suspicions.  Bothwell,  who  was  known 
to  be  the  principal  criminal,  was  shielded  by  a  trial  so  conducted 
as  to  be  nothing  short  of  a  mockery  of  justice.^  Instead  of  ex- 
periencing her  displeasure,  he  rose  still  higher  in  her  favor,  and 
was  honored  with  an  accumulation  of  offices  which  rendered  him 
the  most  powerful  man  in  the  kingdom.  The  next  great  event 
is  the  abduction  of  the  Queen  by  Bothwell,  who,  at  the  head  of 
a  body  of  retainers,  stopped  her  on  her  way,  and,  without  any 
resistance  on  her  part,  conducted  her  to  Stirling  Castle.  Pre- 
viously, at  a  supper  which  he  gave  in  Edinburgh,  possibly  through 
the  fear  that  he  inspired,  he  had  prevailed  on  most  of  the  first 
men  of  Scotland  to  sign  a  paper  recommending  the  Queen  to 
marry  him.  In  Mary's  own  account  of  her  capture  and  of  the 
occurrences  at  Stirling,  she  represents  that  force  was  used,  but 
merely  to  such  a  degree,  and  accompanied  with  such  protesta- 
tions of  love  —  which  had  the  more  effect  from  her  sense  of  the 
great  services  he  had  rendered  her  —  that  she  could  only  forgive 
her  suitor  for  this  excess  and  impatience  of  affection.  Sir  James 
Melville,  her  faithful  friend,  who  had  warned  her,  at  the  risk  of 
his  life,  against  marrying  Bothwell,  was  with  her  when  she  was 
stopped  by  him ;  and  he  dryly  remarks  that  Captain  Blackader, 
who  captured  him,  told  him  "that  it  was  with  the  Queen's  own 
consent."^    Spottiswoode,  who  wrote  his  history  at  the  request 

*  Melville  says  that  everybody  suspected  Bothwell  of  the  murder.     Memoirs, 
p.  78.  2  Memoirs,  p.  158. 


MARY  A  PRISONER  319 

of  James  I.,  her  son,  says  that  "No  men  doubted  but  this  was 
done  by  her  own  hking  and  consent."^  Bothwell  was  divorced 
from  his  wife,  and  the  public  wedding  that  united  him  to  the 
Queen  followed.  He  now  governed  with  a  high  hand.  Mary 
herself,  to  her  own  cost,  soon  became  more  fully  acquainted  with 
his  coarse  and  despotic  nature,  and  was  an  unhappy  wife.  Mean- 
time the  principal  barons  were  combining  and  preparing  to  crush 
Bothwell,  and  they  entered  into  communication  with  Elizabeth, 
from  whom  they  sought  assistance.  At  Carberry  Hill  the  forces 
of  Bothwell  and  the  army  collected  by  the  lords  were  arrayed 
against  each  other.  But  a  battle  was  avoided  by  the  surrender 
of  Mary,  after  a  long  parley  and  in  pursuance  of  an  arrangement 
which  permitted  the  escape  of  Bothwell.  She  was  led  to  Edin- 
burgh, and  treated  with  great  personal  indignity,  especially  by 
the  people,  who  generally  believed  in  her  criminality.  From 
there  she  was  taken  as  a  prisoner  to  Lochleven.  The  lords  had 
intercepted  a  letter,  as  they  asserted,  from  Mary  to  Bothwell, 
which  showed  that  her  passion  for  him  had  not  abated.  Sir 
James  Melville,  speaking  of  a  letter  to  the  Queen  from  the  Laird 
of  Grange,  written  at  this  time,  says:  "It  contained  many  other 
loving  and  humble  admonitions,  which  made  her  bitterly  to 
weep,  for  she  could  not  do  that  so  hastily  which  process  of  time  might 
have  accomplished,'^  that  is,  "put  him  [Bothwell]  clean  out  of 
mind  J '"^  This  is  one  among  the  abundant  proofs  that  whatever 
constraint  had  been  put  upon  her  movements  by  Bothwell,  the 
chain  that  bound  her  to  him  was  the  infatuation  of  her  own  heart. 
The  statements  in  the  foregoing  sketch  rest  upon  evidence 
which  is  independent  of  the  famous  "casket  letters"  —  the  let- 
ters and  love-sonnets  addressed  by  Mary  to  Bothwell,  together 
with  contracts  of  marriage  between  them,  which,  it  was  alleged, 
were  found  in  a  silver  casket,  that  Bothwell,  after  his  flight, 
vainly  endeavored  to  procure  from  the  Castle  of  Edinburgh. 
But  we  are  assured  that  "we  have  only  Morton's  word  for  the 
nature  and  number  of  the  papers  found"  in  the  silver  casket. 
"No  inventory  of  its  contents  .  .  .  was  produced."^  If  the  casket 
letters  are  genuine,  they  prove  incontestably  that  in  the  murder 
of  Darnley,  Mary  was  an  accomplice  before  the  act.  The  genu- 
ineness of  them  has  been  more  or  less  elaborately  discussed,  and 

*  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  (Edinb.  ed.,  18.51),  ii.  51. 

2  Memoirs,  p.  1G8.  »  A.  Lang,  History  of  Scotland  (1902),  p.  563. 


320  THE   REFORMATION 

has  been  maintained  by  the  most  eminent  historians,  as  Hume, 
Robertson,  Laing,  Bm-ton,  Mackintosh,  Mignet,  Ranke.  Their 
genuineness  has  been  defended  more  lately  by  Froude,  in  his 
"History  of  England."  A  very  acute  writer  on  the  other  side 
is  Mr.  Hosack,  the  author  of  a  work  upon  Mary  and  her  accusers/ 
Not  a  few  dispassionate  critics  have  judged  that  the  letters  con- 
tain many  internal  marks  of  genuineness  which  it  would  be  quite 
difficult  for  a  counterfeiter  to  invent,  and  that  the  scrutiny  to 
which  they  were  subjected  in  the  Scottish  Privy  Council,  the 
Scottish  Parliament,  and  the  English  Privy  Council  was  such 
that,  if  they  were  forged,  it  is  hard  to  account  for  the  failure 
to  detect  the  imposture.  Moreover,  the  character  of  Murray, 
although  it  may  be  admitted  that  he  was  not  the  immaculate 
person  that  he  is  sometimes  considered  to  have  been,  must  have 
been  black  indeed  if  these  documents,  which  he  brought  forward 
to  prove  the  guilt  of  his  sister,  were  forged.  But  Murray  is 
praised  not  only  by  his  personal  adherents  and  by  his  party, 
but  by  men  Hke  Spottiswoode  and  Melville.^  Ranke,  who  con- 
siders the  letters  to  be  genuine,  though  somewhat  altered  in  pass- 
ing through  the  various  translations,  still  hesitates  to  pronounce 
a  decision  in  regard  to  the  Queen's  foreknowledge  of  the  murder. 
Another  interpretation  of  the  matter  was  broached  —  that  Mary 
was  actually  becoming  drawn  to  her  penitent  husband,  that  their 
reconciliation  was  sincere ;  and  that  Bothwell,  seeing  the  danger 
that  his  prize  would  slip  from  his  grasp,  hastened  the  consumma- 
tion of  his  plot.  Ranke  observes  that  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem belongs  to  the  poet  who  can  open  up  the  depths  of  the  heart, 
those  abysses  in  which  the  storms  of  passion  rage,  and  actions 
are  born  which  bid  defiance  to  law  and  to  morality,  and  yet  have 
deep  roots  in  the  human  soul.^  It  does  not  appear,  however,  in 
what  way  it  is  possible  to  reconcile  the  genuineness  of  the  casket 
letters,  as  Ranke  affirms  it,  with  any  other  supposition  than 
Mary's  complicity  in  the  plot  in  which  Bothwell  was  the  chief 
actor.     Evidence  is  not  wanting  that  they  have  not  been  mate- 

*  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  and  her  Accusers.  By  John  Hosack,  Barrister  at  Law. 
3d  edition.     2  vols.     London,  1870. 

*  "A  man  truly  good,  and  worthy  to  be  ranked  amongst  the  best  governors 
that  this  kingdom  hath  enjoyed,  and,  therefore,  to  this  day  honored  with  the  title 
of  'the  good  Regent.'  " — Spottiswoode,  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  ii.  121. 

^  Englische  Gsch.,  i.  267.  Of  the  abduction  of  Mary,  Ranke  says:  "Halb 
freiwillig,  halb  gezwungen,  gerieth  sie  in  seine  Gewalt,  und  dadurch  in  die  Noth- 
wendigkeit,  ihm  ihre  Hand  zu  geben"  (p.  269). 


THE  CASKET  LETTERS  321 

rially  interpolated.*  The  author  of  an  instructive  chapter  (VIII.) 
on  "Mary  Stewart,"  in  "The  Wars  of  ReHgion,"  in  Vokime  III. 
of  "The  Cambridge  Modern  History"  (1905),  observes  respecting 
tlie  "casket  letters":  "The  tendency  of  recent  discovery  and 
research,  rendering  at  least  no  longer  tenable  certain  positions 
maintained  by  former  opponents  of  their  genuineness,  is  to  sug- 
gest a  large  foundation  of  Mary's  actual  writing  craftily  altered 
or  interpolated."  ^  Certain  facts  are  referred  to  as  partially 
explained  by  this  inference. 

At  Lochleven  Mary  signed  two  documents,  the  one  abdicat- 
ing the  throne,  the  other  appointing  Murray  Regent  during  the 
minority  of  her  child.  From  this  date,  in  public  records,  the 
reign  of  James  VI.  commences.  The  infant  King  was  crowned 
at  Stirling,  on  the  29th  of  July,  1567. 

>  Burton,  v.  181.  As  to  the  vexed  questions  of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  Mary, 
and  of  the  genuineness  of  the  casket  documents,  questions  that  still  interest  the 
minds  of  men,  notwithstanding  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  judgment  upon  the  fri- 
volity of  the  whole  inquiry,  the  works  of  Burton  on  the  one  side,  and  of  Hosack 
on  the  other,  fortunately  present  the  case  so  adequately  that  every  reader  is  aided 
to  form  a  conclusion  for  himself.  Lawson's  edition  of  Bishop  Keith's  History  of 
the  Affairs  of  Church  and  State  in  Scotland  (printed  for  the  Spottiswoode  Soc, 
1845),  a  work  favorable  to  Mary,  presents  in  the  Editor's  copious  notes  a  large 
amount  of  valuable  material.  Buchanan,  in  his  History,  but  especially  in  his  De- 
tection of  the  Actions  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  which  was  written  under  the  auspices 
of  Murray,  made  a  rhetorical,  yet  powerful  and  effective  attack,  which  reflects  the 
popular  feeling,  adverse  to  Mary,  that  existed  at  the  time  in  Scotland.  Lesly's 
Defence  of  the  Honor  of  Mary,  by  one  of  her  zealous  adherents,  was  a  plea  on  the 
other  side.  He  was  followed  by  other  advocates  of  Mary  on  the  Continent.  De 
Thou,  the  great  French  historian,  believed  with  Buchanan,  and  could  not  be  in- 
duced by  James  I.  to  retract  his  verdict  against  the  King's  mother.  Camden, 
the  English  historian  of  the  seventeenth  century,  maintained  her  innocence. 
Anderson  and  others  published  the  documents.  Keith  and  Goodall  wrote  in 
favor  of  Mary.  Tytler,  Whitaker,  and  Chalmers  argued  on  the  same  side.  Rob- 
ertson appended  to  the  third  volume  of  liis  History  of  Scotland  a  carefully  studied 
Dissertation  on  King  Henry 's  Murder,  to  which  he  considers  that  Mary  was  privy  ; 
and  Hume  maintained  the  same  view  in  his  fourth  volume,  in  the  text  and  in  an 
elaborate  note.  Both  contend  for  the  genuineness  of  the  casket  documents.  Gil- 
bert Stuart  replied  to  Robertson.  An  extensive  discussion,  in  agreement  with 
the  views  of  Hume  and  Robertson,  fills  two  volumes  of  Malcolm  Laing's  History 
of  Scotland.  Prince  Alexander  Labanoff  published,  in  1844,  a  collection  in  seven 
volumes,  of  Queen  Mary's  Letters.  Mr.  Froude's  condemnation  of  Mary  more 
lately  revived  the  controversy.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  and  her  Latest  English  His- 
torian, by  James  F.  Meline  (New  York,  1872),  is  a  polemical  work  against  Froude. 
The  controverted  questions  concerning  Mary  are  keenly  canvassed  by  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang,  History  of  Scotland,  3  vols.,  1903.  The  casket  letters  are  considered  in 
detail,  in  vol.  ii,  especially  in  Appendix  A.  One  conclusion  of  Mr.  Lang  is  that 
"as  the  evidence  stands,  the  letters  could  not  be  founded  on  by  a  jurj';  and  the 
author  himself,  while  unable  to  reject  the  testimony  of  all  the  circumstances  to 
Mary's  guilty  foreknowledge  of,  and  acquiescence  in,  the  crime  of  her  husband's 
murder,  cannot  entertain  any  certain  opinion  as  to  the  entire  or  partial  authen- 
ticity of  the  casket  letters. " 

2  Thomas  Graves  Law,  p.  279. 


322  THE   REFORMATION 

In  December  a  Parliament  assembled,  which  confirmed  the 
Acts  of  1560  for  the  estabUshment  of  Protestantism.  From  this 
time  the  new  Kirk  was  able  to  set  on  foot  a  more  efficient  disci- 
pline than  had  been  possible  before.  One  sign  of  the  change 
was  the  ecclesiastical  censure  to  which  all  pubUcations  were  sub- 
jected. In  the  constitution  and  government  of  the  Scottish 
Church,  the  lay  eldership  has  a  prominent  place.  In  1578  the 
"Second  Book  of  Discipline"  embodied  the  complete  Presby- 
terian hierarchy,  ascending  from  the  parish  sessions  through  the 
presbyteries  and  provincial  synods  up  to  the  General  Assembly, 
which  was  supreme.  Superintendents  were  retained,  whose  func- 
tion it  was  to  carry  out  the  measures  of  the  Assembly.  At 
Frankfort,  Knox  had  composed  a  book  of  devotion  for  public 
worship,  which  he  used  in  his  church  at  Geneva:  "The  Forme 
of  Prayers  and  Ministration  of  the  Sacraments,  &c.,  used  in  the 
English  Congregation  at  Geneva,  and  approved  by  the  famous 
and  godly  learned  man,  John  Cahdn."  This,  with  a  few  changes, 
became  the  "Book  of  Common  Order"  for  the  Scottish  Church. 
It  contains  no  form  of  absolution.  It  includes  a  Confession  of 
Faith,  which  differs  from  that  which  Parhament  and  the  General 
Assembly  adopted.  This  new  Confession  is  derived  from  Cal- 
vin's Catechism,  relating  to  the  Apostles'  Creed.  The  doctrine 
of  the  Sacrament  is  identical  with  that  of  Calvin,  as  distinguished 
from  the  Lutheran  and  the  earher  Zwinglian  theory.  There  was 
a  general  form  of  expulsion  of  unworthy  persons  from  the  Lord's 
table,  in  connection  with  the  ministration  of  the  Sacrament. 
This  was  called  excommunication  or  "fencing  of  the  tables." 
Marriages,  as  well  as  baptisms,  were  celebrated  in  church  and  on 
Sundays.  This  "Book  of  Common  Order"  continued  in  use  for 
about  a  hundred  years,  when  it  was  dropped,  in  connection  with 
the  contest  against  the  English  Prayer  Book.  After  the  Pres- 
byterian system  had  been  estabhshed  by  the  Assembly,  the  old 
polity  of  the  Church  remained  as  a  matter  of  law.  There  were 
bishops,  and  also  abbots  and  priors;  these  places  being  filled, 
after  1560,  by  Protestants,  and  sometimes  by  laymen.  In  1572 
it  was  agreed  between  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  authorities  that 
the  old  names  and  titles  of  archbishops  and  bishops  should  con- 
tinue, although  the  incumbents  were  to  have  no  power  greater 
than  that  of  superintendents,  and  were  to  be  subject  to  the  Kirk 
and  General  Assembly  in  spiritual  things  as  they  were  to  the 


POLITY  AND   WORSHIP  OF  THE    SCOTTISH   KIRK       323 

King  in  things  temporal.  The  temporalities  of  the  sees  had 
mostly  flowed  into  the  hands  of  laymen.  This  was  what  Knox 
condemned;  the  revival  of  episcopacy,  in  the  shadowy  form  just 
described,  appears  to  have  excited  in  him  Httle  or  no  opposition.^ 
After  about  twenty  years,  the  Presbyterian  system,  pure  and 
simple,  was  established,  under  the  auspices  of  Andrew  Melville. 
Subsequently,  the  attempts  of  James  VI.  to  establish  the  royal 
supremacy,  and  to  introduce  not  only  the  Anghcan  polity,  but 
the  Anghcan  ritual,  also,  began  that  contest  between  the  Throne 
and  the  Kirk,  which  signahzed  the  next  reign,  and  brought 
Charles  I.  to  the  scaffold.^ 

The  Queen  of  England  professed,  and  probably  with  sincerity, 
her  high  indignation  at  the  treatment  of  Mary  by  her  subjects. 
It  was  a  flagrant  disregard  of  Elizabeth's  great  political  maxim 
"that  the  head  should  not  be  subject  to  the  foot."  But  in  Mur- 
ray she  had  a  perspicacious  and  firm  man  to  deal  with.  It  was 
evident  to  the  counselors  of  Elizabeth  and  to  Elizabeth  herself, 
that  if  she  interposed  to  put  down  the  Protestant  lords,  who  had 
imprisoned  Mary  and  compelled  her  abdication,  they  would  make 
common  cause  with  France,  and  her  own  throne  would  be  shaken. 
This  conclusion,  however,  was  not  reached  at  once,  Mary  es- 
caped from  Lochleven  on  the  2d  of  May,  1568,  and  an  army 
quickly  rallied  to  her  standard.  It  was  then  the  wish  of  EHza- 
beth  and  her  Cabinet  to  restore  her  to  her  throne,  without  any 
intervention  of  the  French,  and  under  such  circumstances  as 
would  effectually  secure  the  safety  of  England  and  the  ascend- 
ency of  Elizabeth  in  her  counsels.  But  Mary's  army  was  de- 
feated at  Langside,  when  she  was  attempting  to  march  to 
Dumbarton  Castle,  and  she  escaped  by  a  precipitate  flight  into 

'  Compare  McCrie,  p.  326  seq.,  with  Burton,  v.  318.  The  documents  may 
be  found  in  Calderwood,  History  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  (Wodrow  Society),  iii. 
170  seq.     See  also  Principal  Lee,  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  i.  306,  ii.  1  seq. 

^  The  last  days  of  Knox  were  not  free  from  peril  and  conflict.  When  the 
Queen's  party  obtained  the  ascendency  (in  1571)  in  Edinburgh,  he  retired  to  St. 
Andrews.  James  Melville,  afterwards  a  minister,  then  a  student  in  the  college, 
has  left  a  very  interesting  description  of  him,  a  decrepit  old  man,  with  marten  fur 
about  his  neck,  with  a  staff  in  hand,  and  helped  along  the  street  by  his  faithful 
servant,  Richard  Bannatyne,  "and  by  the  said  Richard  and  another  servant 
lifted  up  to  the  pulpit,  where  he  behovit  to  lean  at  his  first  entry,  but  ere  he  had 
done  with  his  sermon,  he  was  so  active  and  vigorous,  that  he  was  likely  to  ding 
the  pulpit  in  blads  and  fly  out  of  it."  (McCrie,  p.  330.)  Bannatyne  wrote 
interesting  Memorials  of  Knox.  Knox  died  on  the  24th  of  November,  1572. 
Morton  said,  over  his  grave,  "that  he  neither  feared  nor  flattered  any  flesh." 
(Burton,  v.  327.) 


324  THE  REFORMATION 

England,  where  she  threw  herself  on  the  protection  of  EUzabeth. 
The  ardent  and  persevering  soUcitations  of  Mary  for  an  interview 
with  the  Enghsh  Queen  were  put  off  until  she  should  be  cleared 
of  the  crime  that  was  imputed  to  her.  Murray  and  his  associates 
were  called  upon  to  justify  their  proceecUngs,  and  brought  for- 
ward the  "casket  documents,"  to  substantiate  their  charges. 

Ehzabeth  might  disUke  the  reUgious  system  of  the  victorious 
party  in  Scotland  and  abhor  their  poUtical  maxims;  but  they 
were,  in  the  existing  situation  of  Europe,  her  alUes,  and  to  put 
Mary  back  upon  her  throne  would  have  been  an  act  of  suicide. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  she  never  renounced  her  claim  to 
the  crown  of  England.  At  this  juncture,  it  was  fortunate  that 
the  slow  and  cautious  Philip  decUned  the  offensive  alUance  that 
was  offered  him  by  France.  In  1569  the  victory  over  the 
Huguenots  in  France  was  followed  by  a  Catholic  rebelUon  in 
the  north  of  England.  The  demand  was  that  Mary's  title  to 
the  succession  should  be  acknowledged.  The  excommunication 
of  EUzabeth  by  Pius  V.  succeeded.  Thenceforward,  all  who 
sympathized  with  the  spirit  of  the  Catholic  reaction  in  Europe, 
and  acknowledged  the  Pope's  authority,  were  under  the  strong- 
est temptation  to  treat  Ehzabeth  as  a  usurper  who  ought  to  be 
actually  dethroned.  The  rebelhon,  under  the  lead  of  Norfolk, 
was  undertaken  with  the  express  and  warm  approbation  of  the 
Pope,  and  PhiUp  was  only  deterred  by  prudential  motives  from 
sending  his  forces  in  aid  of  it;  he  preferred  to  wait  until  the 
insurgents  should  have  seized  on  the  person  of  the  Queen.  The 
current  of  events  was  gradually  leading  to  an  open  conflict 
with  Spain,  which  both  the  Queen  and  Philip  were  reluctant  to 
begin.  For  her  own  security  she  secretly  provided  assistance  to 
the  revolted  subjects  of  Phihp  in  the  Netherlands,  which  pleased 
France,  as  her  aid  to  the  Scottish  rebels  had  gratified  Phihp. 
The  consequence  was  that  favorable  terms  were  granted  to  the 
Netherlands  in  the  Pacification  of  Ghent,  in  1576.  It  was 
material  to  her  interests  that  the  Huguenots  should  not  be  sub- 
dued, and  she  covertly  gave  them  help  while  she  was  in  friendly 
relations  with  the  French  government  that  was  seeking  to  crush 
them.  At  length  the  desperate  condition  of  the  Protestants  in 
the  Netherlands  imposed  on  her  the  necessity,  in  1585,  of  openly 
sending  her  troops,  under  the  command  of  Leicester,  for  their 
deliverance.  Shortly  after,  Drake  appeared  before  St.  Do- 
mingo and  took  possession  of  that  island. 


CONFLICT   OF  ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN  325 

Mary  Stuart  was  the  center  of  the  hopes  of  the  enemies  of 
Protestant  England  and  of  EUzabeth.  Their  plots  looked  to 
the  elevation  of  Mary  to  the  throne  which  Ehzabeth  filled. 
PoUtical  ambition  and  reUgious  fanaticism  were  Unked  together 
in  this  great  scheme.  Mary's  Hfe  was  regarded  by  the  wisest 
of  the  EngUsh  statesmen  as  a  standing  menace.  When  her 
compUcity  with  the  conspiracy  of  Babington,  wliich  involved 
a  Spanish  invasion  and  the  dethronement  and  death  of  Ehza- 
beth was  proved,  the  execution  of  Mary  followed  (1587). 

Apart  from  the  interference  of  Elizabeth  in  the  Netherlands, 
England  and  Spain  had  long  been  engaged  in  a  desultory  war- 
fare on  the  ocean,  where  the  treasure  ships  of  Phihp  were  cap- 
tured by  Drake  and  his  compeers,  and  the  Spanish  colonies 
harassed  by  their  attacks.  The  cruelty  of  the  Inquisition  to 
Enghsh  sailors  in  Spain  quickened  the  relish  of  the  great  English 
mariners  for  this  kind  of  retaUation.  The  saiHng  of  the  in- 
vincible Armada  for  the  conquest  of  England  was  at  once  the 
culmination  of  this  prolonged,  indefinite  conflict,  and  the  su- 
preme effort  of  the  CathoHc  reaction  to  annihilate  the  Protestant 
strength.  The  valor  of  the  Enghsh  seamen,  with  the  winds  for 
their  allies,  dispersed  and  destroyed  the  mighty  fleet,  and  "the 
northern  ocean  even  to  the  frozen  Thule  was  scattered  with 
the  proud  shipwrecks  of  the  Spanish  Armada."  ^  A  death- 
blow was  given  to  the  hopes  of  the  enemies  of  Protestant  Eng- 
land (1588). 

A  sketch  of  the  Reformation  in  Great  Britain  would  be 
incomplete  without  some  notice  of  the  attempts  to  plant  Prot- 
estantism in  Ireland.  Ireland,  one  of  the  last  of  the  countries 
to  bow  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Holy  See,  has  been  equaled  by 
none  in  its  devotion  to  the  Roman  Church,  although  the  in- 
dependence of  the  country  was  wrested  from  it  under  the  warrant 
of  a  bull  of  Adrian  IV.,  which  gave  it  to  Henry  II.  Protestant- 
ism was  associated  with  the  hated  domination  of  foreigners,  and 
was  propagated  according  to  methods  recognized  in  that  age 
as  lawful  to  the  conqueror.^  Invaders  who  were  engaged  in  an 
almost  perpetual  conflict  with  a  subject  race,  the  course  of 
which  was  marked  by  horrible  massacres,  could  hardly  hope 
to  convert  their  enemies  to  their  own  religious  faith.     Henry 

'  Milton,  Of  Reformation  in  England,  b.  ii.         *  Hallam,  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  xviii. 


326  THE   REFORMATION 

VIII.,  having  made  himself  the  head  of  the  English  Church, 
proceeded  to  establish  his  ecclesiastical  supremacy  in  the  neigh- 
boring island.  This  was  ordained  by  the  Irish  Parhament  in 
1537,  but  was  resisted  by  a  great  part  of  the  clergy,  with  the 
Archbishop  of  Armagh  at  their  head.  George  Browne,  a  willing 
agent  of  the  King,  who  had  been  Provincial  of  the  Augustine 
friars  in  England,  was  made  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  The 
Protestant  hierarchy  was  constituted,  but  the  people  remained 
CathoUc.  The  mistaken  pohcy  of  seeking  to  Anglicize  the  coun- 
try was  pursued,  and  the  services  of  rehgion  were  conducted 
in  a  tongue  which  they  did  not  understand.  The  Prayer  Book, 
which  was  introduced  in  1551,  was  not  rendered  into  Irish,  but 
was  to  be  rendered  into  Latin,  for  the  sake  of  ecclesiastics  and 
others  who  were  not  acquainted  with  English !  On  the  acces- 
sion of  Mary,  the  new  fabric  which  had  been  raised  by  Henry 
VIII.  and  his  son  fell  to  pieces  without  resistance.  As  the 
Catholic  Reaction  became  organized  in  Europe,  and  began  to 
wage  its  contest  with  Queen  EUzabeth,  the  Irish,  who  had  to 
some  extent  attended  the  English  service,  generally  deserted  it. 
Protestantism  had  no  footing  outside  of  the  Pale,  or  where 
Enghsh  soldiers  were  not  present  to  protect  it  or  force  it  upon 
the  people.  The  Episcopal  Church  in  Ireland  wore  a  somewhat 
Puritanic  cast,  and  in  its  formularies  set  forth  prominently  the 
Calvinistic  theology.  The  New  Testament  was  not  translated 
into  Irish  until  1602 ;  and  the  Prayer  Book,  though  translated 
earlier,  was  not  sanctioned  by  public  authority,  and  was  little 
used.^  Among  various  wise  suggestions  in  Lord  Bacon's  tract, 
written  in  1601,  entitled  "Considerations  touching  the  Queen's 
service  in  Ireland,"  is  a  recommendation  to  take  care  "of  the 
versions  of  Bibles  and  catechisms,  and  other  books  of  instruc- 
tion, into  the  Irish  language."  ^  With  equal  sagacity  and  good 
feeling,  he  counsels  the  establishment  of  colonies  or  plantations, 
the  sending  out  of  fervent,  popular  preachers  and  of  pious  and 
learned  bishops,  and  the  fostering  of  education.  He  recom- 
mends mildness  and  toleration  rather  than  the  use  of  the  tem- 
poral sword.  But  the  policy  which  the  great  philosopher  and 
statesman  marked  out  was  very  imperfectly  followed. 

'  Hardwick,  History  of  the  Reformation,  p.  270. 

^  This  tract  is  in  vol.  v.  of  Montagu's  edition  of  Bacon's  writings. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    REFORMATION    IN    ITALY    AND    IN    SPAIN:     THE    COUNTER- 
REFORMATION    IN    THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    CHURCH 

Protestantism,  which  in  the  course  of  one  generation  spread 
over  a  great  part  of  central  and  northern  Europe,  penetrated 
beyond  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees.  But  here,  in  the  Itahan 
and  Spanish  peninsulas,  it  encountered  the  first  effectual  re- 
sistance. Here  were  organized  the  forces  that  were  to  arrest 
its  march,  and  even  to  reconquer  territory  which  had  been 
surrendered  to  the  new  faith. 

After  the  emancipation  of  Italy  from  the  control  of  the 
German  emperors,  by  the  downfall  of  the  Hohenstaufen  Hne,  in 
the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  period  of  two  centuries 
and  a  half  elapsed  prior  to  the  invasion  of  Charles  VHI.  Then 
Italy  became  the  field  and  the  prize  of  the  conflict  between  the 
Spanish-Austrian  house  and  France.  The  long  interval  of  in- 
dependence preceding  this  epoch,  notwithstanding  the  turbu- 
lence and  confusion  that  marked  the  poHtical  history  of  Italy, 
was  the  era  in  which  art,  letters,  trade,  and  commerce  flourished 
most;  the  period  in  which  the  intellectual  superiority  of  Italy 
among  the  European  nations  was  most  conspicuous.  But 
municipal  liberty  was  gradually  lost.  The  conflicts,  in  the 
northern  and  central  cities,  between  the  nobles  and  the  commons, 
generally  issued  in  the  triumph  of  the  latter;  but  the  next 
step  was  the  grasping  of  supreme  power  by  a  single  family. 
The  dominion  of  a  tyrant  or  lord  was  built  up  on  the  ruins  of 
republicanism.  Florence  followed  the  fate  of  other  cities,  and 
fell  at  last  under  the  rule  of  the  Medici.^  The  division  of  Italy 
into  states,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  —  of  which 
Naples,  the  Papal  Kingdom,  Florence,  Milan,  and  Venice,  were 
the  chief  —  was  favorable  to  the  Reformation.  There  was  no 
one  central  government  with  power  to  crush  the  new  opinions. 

'  On  the  condition  of  Italy  in  the  15th  century,  see  Sismondi,  Hist.  d.  Rejnibl. 
Ital.  d.  Moyen  Age,  vii.  ch.  x. ;  Hallam,  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ayes,  ch.  iii.,  p.  ii. 

327 


328  THE   REFORMATION 

It  might  be  possible  for  those  who  were  persecuted  in  one  city 
to  flee  into  another.  On  the  other  hand,  the  decUne  of  the  spirit 
of  Hberty,  which  took  place  in  the  age  before  the  Reformation, 
the  brilUant  age  of  Uteratm-e  and  art,  was  an  inauspicious  event. 

Italy  was  a  near  spectator  of  the  venaUty  and  profligacy  of 
the  Roman  curia,  and  the  victim  in  the  strife  that  was  kindled 
by  the  ambition  of  the  pontiffs  to  extend  their  temporal  domin- 
ion and  to  aggrandize  their  relatives.  The  rebukes  that  were 
thundered  from  the  pulpit  of  Savonarola  were  not  stripped  of 
their  influence  in  consequence  of  his  death,  for  which  the  enmity 
of  Alexander  VI.  was  largely  responsible.  In  the  Council  of 
the  Lateran,  in  1512,  ^Egidius,  General  of  the  Augustinian 
Order,  and  the  Count  of  Mirandola,  among  others,  denounced 
the  abuses  that  menaced  the  Church  and  rehgion  itself  with 
ruin.  The  arraignment  of  the  papal  administration  by  the 
Transalpine  reformers  would  naturally  meet  with  a  sympathetic 
response  in  Italy.  Yet  there  was  a  national  pride  connected 
with  the  Papacy;  and  this  sentiment  was  strengthened  by  the 
circumstance  that  the  Papacy  was  often  attacked  as  an  ItaUan 
institution,  and  in  a  style  that  was  adapted  to  wound  ItaUan 
feeling. 

As  far  back  as  the  twelfth  century,  Arnold  of  Brescia,  in- 
spired by  the  teachings  of  Abelard  with  a  love  of  truth,  and 
catching  the  spirit  which  the  struggle  for  municipal  liberty 
was  beginning  to  nourish,  demanded  that  the  clergy  should 
renounce  their  worldly  possessions  and  temporal  power,  and 
return  to  a  life  of  apostolic  simplicity.  For  a  time  his  eloquence 
carried  the  day  in  Rome  itself.  He  perished  at  last,  a  martyr 
to  his  principles.^  The  follies  and  vices  of  the  clergy,  even  the 
iniquitous  doings  of  Popes,  had  been  castigated  by  ItaHan 
writers  from  the  dawn  of  the  vernacular  literature.  The  lofty 
and  bitter  invectives  of  Dante  are  aimed  at  the  temporal  ambi- 
tion and  at  particular  misdeeds  of  incumbents  of  the  Holy  See. 
At  the  very  opening  of  the  "Inferno,"  he  paints  the  existing 
Church,  clothed  with  temporal  power,  as:  — 

"A  she-wolf,  that  with  all  hungerings, 
Seemed  to  be  laden  in  her  meagerness, 
And  many  folk  has  caused  to  live  forlorn."* 

•  For  the  literature  respecting  Arnold  of  Brescia,  see  Deutsch's  article  in 
Hauck's  Realencyklopadie,  ii.  117.  *  Inferno,  i.  49-51. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   POSITION   OF   DANTE  329 

Pope  Anastasius  he  charges  with  heresy  and  places  among  the 
lost/  Pope  Celestine  V.,  for  abdicating  the  papal  chair  to  give 
room  for  Boniface  VIII.,  Ues  at  the  mouth  of  hell  among  those 
whom  mercy  and  justice  both  disdain;^  and  Boniface  himself 
expiates  his  crimes  in  a  deeper  abyss  of  perdition.^  The  Popes 
had  turned  from  shepherds  into  wolves,  and,  neglecting  the 
Gospels  and  the  Fathers,  had  only  conned  the  Decretals :  — 

"Their  meditations  reach  not  Nazareth."* 

Manfred,  the  son  of  the  Emperor  Frederic  II,,  died  excommuni- 
cate; but  in  Purgatory  he  was  found  having  the  promise  of 
everlasting  happiness :  — 

"By  malison  of  theirs  is  not  so  lost 
Eternal  love,  that  it  cannot  return, 
So  long  as  hope  has  anything  of  green."* 

But  Dante  receives  the  dogmas  of  the  Church ;  his  whole  work 
is  cast  in  the  mold  of  the  traditional  theology;  he  places  in 
the  joys  of  Paradise,  in  "the  heaven  of  the  sun,"  Aquinas 
Bonaventura,  Albertus  Magnus,  Peter  Lombard,  and  the  other 
great  Hghts  of  orthodoxy.^  Heresiarchs  groan  under  a  doom 
from  which  there  is  no  deliverance.'  It  is  the  abominations  in 
the  conduct  of  ecclesiastics,  and  especially  their  seizure  of 
worldly  dominion,  with  the  wealth  and  pride  which  accompany 
it,  that  move  the  solemn  poet's  ire.  Against  this  temporal 
rule  and  party  spirit  of  his  successors,  St.  Peter  inveighs  in  Para- 
dise.    He  exclaims :  — 

"In  garb  of  shepherds  the  rapacious  wolves 
Are  seen  from  here  above  o  'er  all  the  pastures. "  ^ 

Dante's  ideal  is  the  empire  restored  to  universal  rule  and  having 
its  seat  in  Italy.  This  theory  of  a  monarchy  is  the  subject  of 
his  political  treatise.^     Petrarch  takes  the  same  general  position, 

»  Ibid.,  xi.  8.  «  Purgatorio,  iii.  133-135. 

2  Ihid.,  iii.  59.  «  Paradiso,  x.  98,  99,  107;  xii.  127. 

*  Ibid.,  xix.  53.  ''  Inferno,  x. 

*  Paradiso,  ix.  137.  *  Paradiso,  xxvii.  55-56. 

9  A  class  of  critics  have  unsuccessfully  attempted  to  show  that  Dante  was 
really  hostile  to  the  spiritual  sovereignty  of  the  Popes.  One  theory  is  that  the 
principal  poets  of  that  age  belonged  to  secret  anti-sacerdotal  associations.  This 
theory  is  advocated  by  Gabriele  Rossetti :  Sullo  Spirito  antipapale  che  produsse 
la  Reforma,  etc.,  translated  into  English  by  Miss  Ward  (London,  1834).  Among 
the  instructive  works  upon  Dante  is  that  of  Prof.  V.  Botta,  Dante  as  Philosopher, 
Patriot,  and  Poet,  New  York,  1865.  A  valuable  list  of  works  on  Dante,  some 
of  which  relate  directly  to  his  theology,  is  given  by  Prof.  Abegg  in  his  Essay, 
Die  Idee  der  Gerechtigkeit  u.  die  strafrechtlichen  Grundsdtze  in  Dante's  gbttl.  Conwdie, 
in  the  Jahrb.  d.  deutschcn  Dante-Gesellschaft,  i.,  p.  180,  n.  See  also  Prof.  J.  R. 
Lowell's  learned  article  on  Dante,  N .  A.  Review,  July,  1872. 


330  THE   REFORMATION 

although  his  denunciations  of  the  pollution  of  the  papal  curia, 
the  mystical  Babylon  of  the  Apocalypse,  surpass  in  intensity 
the  most  fiery  declamation  of  Protestants  in  later  times.  Boc- 
caccio goes  a  step  farther.  His  treatment  of  the  Church,  had 
we  no  other  knowledge  of  him  than  what  the  "Decamerone" 
affords,  would  even  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  no  rever- 
ence for  its  teaching.  Ecclesiastical  persons  are  made  to  figure 
in  ludicrous  and  scandalous  situations.  One  of  liis  tales,  for 
example,  is  the  story  of  a  Jew  whom  a  friend  endeavored  to 
convert  to  the  Christian  faith.  The  Jew  resolves  to  go  from 
Paris  to  Rome  in  order  to  see  Christianity  at  its  headquarters 
—  a  purpose  that  strikes  with  dismay  his  Christian  friend,  who 
doubts  not  that  the  iniquitous  hves  of  the  Pope,  of  his  cardinals 
and  court,  will  chase  from  the  Jew's  mind  all  thoughts  of  con- 
version. But  in  due  time  he  comes  back  a  Christian  behever, 
and  explains  to  his  astonished  friend  that  the  spectacle  which 
he  had  beheld  in  the  capital  of  Christianity  had  convinced  him 
that  the  Christian  religion  must  have  a  supernatural  origin  and 
divine  support ;  else  it  would  have  been  driven  out  of  the  world 
by  the  profligacy  and  folly  of  its  guardians.^ 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  after  the  time  of  Dante,  Pe- 
trarch, and  Boccaccio,  the  passionate  study  of  the  ancients, 
which  these  great  writers  had  fostered,  suspended  in  a  remark- 
able degree  the  development  of  Italian  literature,  in  the  path 
of  original  production.^  The  Renaissance  was  antiquarian  and 
critical  in  its  spirit.  All  that  could  be  done  for  a  long  time 
was  to  count  and  weigh  the  treasures  of  antiquity  which  enthu- 
siastic explorers  discovered  within  the  walls  of  monasteries, 
or  brought  from  the  East.  The  revival  of  letters  led  to  the 
exposure  of  fictions,  like  the  pretended  donation  of  Constantine, 
which  Laurentius  Valla,  whom  Bellarmine  called  a  precursor  of 
the  Lutherans,  disproved  in  a  treatise  that  produced  a  general 
excitement.  The  skeptical  tone  of  Italian  Humanism  reduced 
to  a  low  point  the  authority  of  the  Church  among  the  cultivated 
class.     But  the  Humanists  seldom  possessed  the  heroic  quaU- 

*  This  jest  is  reproduced  in  a  different  shape  by  Voltaire,  who  says  of  "our 
religion":  "It  is  unquestionably  divine,  since  seventeen  centuries  of  imposture 
and  imbecility  have  not  destroyed  it."  Quoted  by  Morley,  Voltaire,  p.  305.  On 
Boccaccio's  treatment  of  ecclesiastics  and  of  religion,  see  Ginguen6,  Hist.  Litter- 
aire  d'ltalie,  iii.  120  seq. 

*  Sismondi,  Hist.  View  of  the  Lit.  of  the  South  of  Europe,  i.  306. 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE   HUMANISTS  331 

ties  of  character  which  qualified  them  to  endure  suffering  for 
the  cause  of  truth.  The  love  of  fame,  a  passion  which  the 
Christian  spirit  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  kept  in  check,  reap- 
peared, in  an  excessive  measure,  in  the  devotees  of  pagan  htera- 
ture.  They  burned  incense  to  the  great  on  whom  they  depended 
for  patronage  and  advancement,  but  carried  into  their  disputes 
with  one  another  an  acrimony  and  fierceness  without  previous 
example.  Poggio,  one  of  the  principal  men  of  letters  in  the 
first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  infused  into  his  polemical 
writings  a  ferocity  which  is  only  less  repulsive  than  the  gross 
obscenity  that  defiles  other  works  from  his  pen.^  The  Italian 
Humanists  did  a  vast  work  of  a  negative  sort  in  sweeping  away 
superstition,  and  in  undermining  the  credit  of  ecclesiastics 
and  of  their  dogmas.  Their  positive  services  in  behalf  of  a 
more  enhghtened  religion  are  of  less  account.  Yet  good  fruit 
often  grew  out  of  the  attention  that  was  given  to  the  Scrip- 
tures.^ Academies,  or  private  hterary  associations,  sprang  up 
in  the  principal  cities;  and  in  them  theological  topics  were  dis- 
cussed with  freedom.  The  widespread  culture  formed  a  soil 
in  which  the  seed  of  the  new  doctrine,  under  favorable  circum- 
stances, might  germinate.^ 

At  an  early  day,  the  writings  of  Luther  and  of  the  other 
Reformers  were  widely  disseminated  in  Italy.  Both  Luther 
and  Zwingli  had  their  correspondents  there.  The  writings  were 
circulated  anonymously  or  under  fictitious  names,  and  thus 
eluded  the  vigilance  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.*    The  war 

•  Tiraboschi,  Storia  della  Letteratura  Ital.,  vi.  1027  seq.  On  Poggio,  see  also 
Hallam,  Intr.  to  the  Lit.  of  Europe,  i.  66.  Shepherd,  Life  of  Poggio,  p.  460.  Shep- 
herd says  of  his  indecency  and  levity,  that  they  were  "rather  vices  of  the  times 
than  of  the  man." 

^  Upon  the  moral  and  religious  tone,  as  well  as  upon  the  other  characteristics 
of  the  Renaissance,  there  are  interesting  statements  in  Burckhardt,  Die  Cultur 
d.  Renaissance  in  Italien  (Basel,  1860).  An  excellent  sketch  of  the  Renaissance 
in  Italy,  in  its  various  features,  is  given  by  Gregorovius,  Geschichte  d.  Stadt  Rom. 
im  Mittelalter,  vol.  vii.  c.  vi.   (Stuttgart,  1870). 

'  Gerdesius,  Specimen  Italiw  Reformatae  (Lugd.  Bat.,  1765).  An  excellent 
work  on  the  Reformation  in  Italy  is  that  of  Dr.  McCrie,  History  of  the  Progress 
and  Suppression  of  the  Reformation  in  Italy  (new  edition,  1856).  This,  together 
with  the  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Spain,  by  the  same  author,  are  among  the 
most  valuable  of  the  monographs  relating  to  the  period  of  the  Reformation.  Ranke, 
History  of  the  Popes  of  Rome  during  the  16th  and  17th  Centuries  (the  sequel  of  an 
earlier  work.  Die  Fursten  u.  Volker  von  sudl.  Europa),  presents  much  additional 
matter  of  extreme  value. 

*  Melancthon's  Loci  Communes  were  printed  at  Venice,  the  name  of  the  au- 
thor being  given  on  the  title  page,  as  Ippofilo  da  Terra  Nigra,  McCrie,  p.  23.  See 
also  Cantu,  Storia  della  Lett.  Ital.,  p.  287. 


332  THE   REFORMATION 

between  Charles  V.  and  the  Pope,  that  broke  out  in  1526,  brought 
a  host  of  Lutheran  soldiers  into  Italy,  many  of  whom,  after  the 
sack  of  Rome,  remained  long  at  Naples.  Not  only  by  their 
direct  influence,  but  by  the  freedom  which  their  presence 
occasioned  during  the  progress  of  hostilities,  the  new  doctrine 
was  disseminated.  The  Augustinian  theology  took  root  in 
many  minds  and  produced  a  greater  or  less  sympathy  with  the 
Protestant  movement.  The  peculiarity  in  the  case  of  Italy,  and, 
still  more,  of  Spain,  is,  that  Protestantism  could  not  avow  itself 
without  being  instantly  smothered.  Decided  Protestantism 
could  not  live  except  in  concealment.  Protestant  worshipers 
could  exist  only  as  secret  societies.  In  considering  the  Refor- 
mation in  these  countries,  we  must  take  into  view  the  real  but 
unavowed  Protestantism;  and  also  the  leanings  toward  the 
Protestant  system  which  were  not  sufficient  to  prompt  to  a 
renunciation  of  the  old  Church,  or  were  repressed  before  they 
could  ripen  into  full  convictions.  There  were  some  who  only 
hoped  for  the  removal  of  the  corruption  that  existed  in  the 
papal  court  and  throughout  the  CathoHc  Church.  Another 
class  sympathized  with  the  Reformers  in  matters  of  doctrine, 
especially  on  the  subject  of  Justification,  but  were  not  disposed 
to  alter  materially  the  existing  polity  or  forms  of  worship. 
Still  another  class  were  deterred  by  timidity,  or  lack  of  earnest- 
ness, or  some  more  commendable  motive,  from  declaring  in 
favor  of  the  Protestant  system  which  they,  at  heart,  adopted.* 
Protestantism  in  Italy  was  thus  a  thing  of  degrees;  and  in  its 
earlier  stages  developed  itself  in  connection  with  tendencies 
which  diverged  into  the  reactionary,  defensive,  and  aggressive 
force  to  which  the  Catholic  Church  owed  its  restoration. 

Before  the  death  of  Leo  X.,  a  reverent,  devotional  spirit, 
opposed  to  the  skeptical  and  epicurean  tone  of  society,  mani- 
fested itself  among  a  class  of  educated  Italians.  Fifty  or  sixty 
persons  united  at  Rome  in  what  they  called  the  Oratory  of 
Divine  Love,  and  held  meetings  for  worship  and  mutual  edifica- 
tion. Among  them  were  men  who  afterwards  reached  the 
highest  distinction,  but  were  destined  to  separate  from  one 
another  in  their  views  of  Reform :  CarafTa,  Contarini,  Sadolet, 
Giber  to,  all  of  whom  were  subsequently  made  cardinals.  The 
common  bond  among  them  was  the  earnest  desire  for  the  re- 

>  McCrie,  p.  102. 


CHARACTER   OF   ITALIAN   PROTESTANTISM  333 

moval  of  abuses,  and  for  the  moral  reformation  of  the  Church 
in  its  head  and  members.  Contarini  may  be  considered  the 
head  of  those  who  espoused  a  doctrine  of  Justification,  not 
materially  distinguished  from  that  of  Luther.  With  him  were 
found,  a  few  years  later,  at  Venice,  besides  former  associates, 
Flaminio,  a  thorough  believer  in  the  evangeUcal  idea  of  gratui- 
tous salvation,  and  Reginald  Pole,  who  adopted  the  same 
opinion.  This  party  of  EvangeUcal  CathoUcs  were  devoted  to 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  to  the  unity  of  it.  Their  aim  was  to 
purify  the  existing  body;  but  in  their  views  of  the  great  doc- 
trine, which  formed  the  original  ground  of  controversy,  they 
stood  in  a  position  to  meet  and  conciHate  the  Protestants. 
Their  doctrine  of  Justification,  bringing  with  it  a  greater  or 
less  incUnation  to  other  doctrinal  changes  in  keeping  with  it, 
spread  among  the  intelhgent  classes  throughout  Italy. 

In  Ferrara,  the  reformed  opinions  were  encouraged  and 
protected  by  Renee  or  Renata,  the  wife  of  Hercules  II.,  who 
was  equally  distinguished  for  her  learning  and  her  personal 
attractions.  At  her  Court  the  French  poet,  Clement  Marot, 
found  a  refuge ;  and  here  Calvin  resided  for  some  months,  under 
an  assumed  name.  Among  the  professors  in  the  University  at 
Ferrara  was  Morata,  the  father  of  the  celebrated  Olympia 
Morata,  and,  Uke  her,  imbued  with  evangelical  opinions.  At 
Modena,  which  was  renowned  for  the  culture  of  its  inhabitants, 
the  new  doctrine  found  a  hospitable  reception;  especially 
among  the  members  of  the  academy,  who  looked  with  contempt 
on  the  priests  and  monks.  Cardinal  Morone,  the  Bishop  of 
Modena,  who  had  been  absent  in  Germany  on  missions  from  the 
Pope,  writes,  in  1542,  "Wherever  I  go,  and  from  all  quarters, 
I  hear  that  the  city  has  become  Lutheran."  ^  In  Florence, 
though  it  was  the  seat  of  the  Medici,  and  furnished  in  this  age 
two  Popes,  Leo  X.  and  Clement  VII.,  many  embraced  the  Prot- 
estant faith.  Among  them  was  Brucioli,  who  published,  at 
Venice,  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  and  a  commentary  on 
the  whole  Bible.  Not  less  than  three  translators  of  the  Bible 
in  this  period  were  born  at  Florence.  At  Bologna,  Mollio,  a 
celebrated  teacher  in  the  University,  after  the  year  1533,  taught 
the  Protestant  views  on  Justification  and  other  points,  until 
he  was  removed  from  his  office  by  order  of  the  Pope.     Subse- 

'  McCrie,  p.  54. 


334  THE   REFORMATION 

quently,  through  a  letter  to  the  Protestants  of  Bologna,  from 
Bueer,  and  through  another  letter  from  them,  we  learn  that 
they  were  nmnerous.  Venice,  where  printing  and  the  book 
trade  flourished,  and  where  the  internal  poUce  was  less  severe 
than  elsewhere,  offered  the  best  advantages  both  for  the  safe 
reception  and  active  diffusion  of  the  reformed  doctrines.  "You 
give  me  joy,"  said  Luther,  in  1528,  "by  what  you  write  of  the 
Venetians  receiving  the  word  of  God."  Later  prosecutions  for 
heresy  there  were  multipUed.  Pietro  Carnesecchi,  who  after- 
wards died  for  his  faith,  Lupetino,  provincial  of  the  Franciscans, 
who  also  perished  as  a  martyr,  and  Baldassare  Altieri,  who 
acted  as  agent  of  the  Protestant  princes  in  Germany,  were 
among  the  most  efficient  in  diffusing  the  Protestant  opinions.^ 
Padua,  Verona,  and  other  places  within  the  Venetian  territory 
likewise  furnished  adherents  of  the  new  faith.  The  same  was 
true  of  the  Milanese,  where  the  contiguity  to  Switzerland,  and 
the  poHtical  changes  in  the  duchy,  opened  avenues  for  the 
introduction  of  heresy. 

In  Naples,  Juan  Valdes,  a  Spaniard,  Secretary  of  the  Viceroy 
of  Charles  V.,  was  an  eloquent  and  influential  supporter  of  the 
evangelical  doctrine,  and  won  to  the  full  or  partial  adoption  of 
it  many  persons  of  distinction;  including,  it  is  thought,  Vit- 
toria  Colonna  and  other  members  of  the  Colonna  family.^  His 
devout  mysticism  recommended  him  as  a  religious  guide  to 
many  who  did  not  give  their  usual  attendance  at  the  Churches. 
In  many  other  places,  a  good  beginning  was  made  in  the  same 
direction.  Not  a  few  among  the  numerous  gifted  and  culti- 
vated women  in  that  age,  when  zeal  for  the  study  of  the  ancient 
authors  had  become  a  pervading  passion,  were  attracted  to  the 
evangelical  doctrine.  This  doctrine  gained  many  converts  among 
the  middle  classes.  In  a  decree  of  the  Inquisition,  three  thousand 
schoolmasters  were  said  to  have  espoused  it.  Caraffa  informed 
Paul  III.  that  "  the  whole  of  Italy  was  infected  with  the  Lutheran 
heresy,  which  had  been  extensively  embraced  both  by  states- 
men and  ecclesiastics."^     "Whole  Ubraries,"  says  Melancthon, 

>  McCrie,  p.  64. 

^  See  the  learned  article  on  Vald^s  by  Dr.  Ed.  Bohmer,  in  Herzog,  Real- 
encycl.  d.  Theol.  There  were  two  brothers,  Alfonso  and  Juan.  Alfonso  was 
also  favorable  to  the  Reformation.  Dr.  Bohmer  presents  a  full  description  of  the 
writings  and  opinions  of  Juan  Valdes. 

^  Quoted  by  McCrie,  p.  113. 


PROGRESS   OF   PROTESTANTISM    IN    ITALY  335 

in  a  letter  written  probably  in  1540,  "have  been  carried  from 
the  late  fair  into  Italy."  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  evangeUcal 
doctrine  was  favorably  regarded  by  a  large  body  of  educated 
persons,  for  it  was  almost  exclusively  among  these  that  it  found 
sympathy.  The  most  eminent  preacher  in  Italy,  Bernardino 
Ochino,  General  of  the  Capuchins,  who  drew  crowds  of  admiring 
aucUtors  at  Venice,  and  wherever  else  he  appeared  in  the  pulpit, 
and  Peter  Martyr  VermigU,  an  honored  member  of  the  Augus- 
tinian  order,  who  was  hardly  less  distinguished,  and  a  much 
abler  theologian,  were  of  this  number.  Chiefly  owing  to  the 
labors  of  Martyr,  Lucca  had,  perhaps,  more  converts  to  the 
evangelical  faith  than  any  other  Italian  city.  The  Httle  treatise 
on  the  "Benefits  of  Christ,"  which  was  composed,  not  by  Pale- 
ario,  but  by  a  disciple  of  Valdes,  Benedetto  of  Mantua,  was 
circulated  in  thousands  of  copies.  Paleario  wrote  a  book  of 
like  purport,  on  the  sufficiency  and  efficacy  of  the  death  of 
Christ.^  We  have  the  testimony  of  Pope  Clement  VII.  to  the 
wide  prevalence,  in  different  parts  of  Italy,  of  "the  pestiferous 
heresy  of  Luther,"  not  only  among  secular  persons,  but  also 
among  the  clergy.^ 

In  Venice  and  Naples,  the  Reformed  Churches  were  organized 
with  pastors,  and  held  their  secret  meetings.  Unhappily,  the 
Sacramentarian  quarrel  broke  out  in  the  former  place,  and  was 
aggravated  by  an  intolerant  letter  of  Luther,  in  which  he  de- 
clared his  preference  of  transubstantiation  to  the  ZwingUan 
doctrine:  a  letter  which  Melancthon,  in  his  epistles  to  friends, 
noticed  with  strong  terms  of  condemnation. 

Paul  III.,  who  succeeded  Clement  VII.,  in  1534,  showed  him- 
self friendly  to  the  Catholic  reforming  party.  He  made  Con- 
tarini  cardinal,  and  elevated  to  the  same  rank  Caraffa,  Pole, 
Sadolet,  and  others,  most  of  whom  had  belonged  to  the  Oratory 
of  Divine  Love,  and  some  of  whom  were  friendly  to  the  Prot- 
estant doctrine  of  salvation.  He  appointed  Commissions  of 
Reform,  whose  business  it  was  to  point  out  and  remove  abuses 
in  the  Roman  curia,  such  as  had  excited  everywhere  just  com- 
plaint. A  commission,  to  which  Sadolet  and  Caraffa  belonged, 
met  at  Bologna  in  1537,  and  presented  to  the  Pope  a  consilium, 

*  On  the  two  authors,  see  the  Cambridge  Modern  History,  vol.  ii.  pp.  389, 
395.  Kurtz,  Lehrb.  d.  Kirchengesch.,  ii.  p.  120.  Hauck,  Realencyklopddie,  xiv, 
601  seq.  *  McCrie,  p.  45. 


336  THE   REFORMATION 

or  opinion,  in  which  they  described  the  abuses  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Church  as  amounting  to  "a  pestiferous  malady." 
Their  advice  was  approved  by  Paul  III.,  and  printed  by  his 
direction.  Ridicule,  however,  was  excited  in  Germany  when 
it  was  known  that  one  of  the  measures  recommended  by  the 
accomplished  Sadolet,  in  connection  with  his  associates,  was 
the  exclusion  of  the  Colloquies  of  Erasmus  from  seminaries 
of  learning.  The  hopes  of  Contarini  and  his  friends  were  san- 
guine; and  it  seemed  not  impossible  that  so  great  concessions 
might  be  made  that  the  Protestants  would  once  more  unite 
themselves  with  the  Church.  At  the  Conference  at  Ratisbon, 
in  1541,  Contarini  appeared  as  Legate  of  the  Pope,  and  met, 
on  the  other  side,  Bucer  and  Melancthon,  the  most  moderate 
and  yielding  of  all  the  Protestant  leaders.  The  political  situa- 
tion was  such,  that  the  Emperor  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost 
to  bring  about  an  accommodation  between  the  two  parties. 
On  the  four  great  articles,  of  the  nature  of  man,  original  sin, 
redemption  and  justification,  they  actually  came  to  an  agree- 
ment. The  Primacy  of  the  Pope,  and  the  Eucharist,  were  the 
two  great  points  that  remained.  But  the  project  of  union  met 
with  opposition  from  various  quarters.  Francis  I.  raised  an 
outcry  against  it,  as  a  surrender  of  the  Cathohc  faith,  his  motive 
being  the  fear  of  augmenting  the  power  of  Charles.  Luther 
was  dissatisfied  with  the  platform,  on  account  of  its  want  of 
definiteness,  and  had  no  confidence  in  the  practicableness  of 
a  union.  On  the  opposite  side,  the  same  feehng  manifested 
itself:  Caraffa  did  not  approve  of  the  terms  of  the  agreement 
which  Contarini  had  sanctioned,  especially  in  regard  to  justifica- 
tion, and  Paul  III.  took  the  same  view.  There  was  jealousy 
of  Charles  at  Rome:  all  of  his  enemies  combined  against  the 
scheme.     Thus  the  great  project  fell  to  the  ground. 

This  event  marks  the  division  of  the  CathoHc  reforming  party. 
Caraffa,  while  severe  and  earnest  in  his  demand  for  practical 
reforms  which  should  purify  the  administration  of  the  Church, 
from  the  Pope  downwards,  was  sternly  and  inflexibly  hostile 
to  every  modification  of  the  dogmatic  system.  He  stood  forth 
as  the  representative  and  leader  of  those  who  were  resolved  to 
defend  to  the  last  the  polity  and  dogmas  of  the  Church,  against 
all  innovation,  while  at  the  same  time  they  aimed  to  infuse  a 
spirit  of  strict  and  even  ascetic  purity  and  zeal  into  all  its  officers, 


THE   ORDER   OF   JESUITS  337 

from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  It  was  this  party  that  revived 
the  tone  of  the  Cathohc  Church,  ralUed  its  disorganized  forces, 
and  turned  upon  its  adversaries  with  a  renewed  and  formidable 
energy. 

There  were  two  principal  instruments  by  which  this  internal 
renovation  and  aggressive  movement  of  the  Catholic  Church 
were  accompUshed.  These  were  the  rise  of  new  orders,  es- 
pecially the  order  of  Jesuits ;  and  the  Council  of  Trent. 

A  revival  of  zeal  in  the  Cathohc  Church  has  always  been 
signahzed  by  the  appearance  of  new  developments  of  the  mo- 
nastic spirit.  In  truth,  monasticism  arose  at  the  outset  from  a 
feeling  of  weariness  and  disgust  at  the  worldUness  which  had 
invaded  the  Church.  When  the  societies  under  the  Benedictine 
rule  lapsed  from  their  strictness  of  discipline  and  purity  of  life, 
new  fraternities,  as  that  of  Clugni,  sprang  up,  in  which  monastic 
simplicity  and  severity  were  restored.  As  these  in  turn  felt 
the  enervating  influence  of  wealth,  the  great  mendicant  orders, 
the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans,  were  estabhshed,  the  off- 
spring of  a  more  earnest  spirit.  One  palpable  sign  of  the  re- 
suscitation of  the  Cathohc  body  was  the  formation  of  new 
monastic  fraternities,  like  the  Theatines,  who  were  organized 
under  the  auspices  of  Caraffa  —  priests  with  monastic  vows, 
who  did  not  call  themselves  monks,  however,  and  adopted  no 
austerities  which  interfered  with  their  practical  labors  in  preach- 
ing, administering  the  sacraments,  and  tending  the  sick.  Their 
fervid  addresses  from  the  pulpit  were  the  more  impressive  from 
the  knowledge  which  their  auditors  had  of  their  devoted  lives. 
They  were  gradually  transformed  into  a  seminary  for  the  train- 
ing of  priests.  But  this  and  other  new  orders,  significant  and 
effective  as  they  were,  were  soon  echpsed  by  the  more  renowned 
and  influential  Society  of  Jesus.  Ignatius  Loyola,  a  Spanish 
soldier  of  noble  birth,  blending  with  the  love  of  his  profession 
something  of  the  religious  spirit  that  had  characterized  the 
mediaeval  chivalry,  received  in  the  war  against  the  French,  at 
the  siege  of  Pampeluna,  in  1521,  wounds  in  both  his  legs,  which 
disabled  him  from  mihtary  service.  In  his  meditations  during 
his  illness,  the  dreams  of  chivalry  were  curiously  mingled  with 
devotional  aspirations.  The  glory  of  St.  Dominic,  St.  Francis, 
and  other  heroes   of    the   faith   seized   on   his    imagination.* 

•  Maffeius,  Ignatii  Loiolce  Vita,  ch.  ii.  (Conversio  ejus  ad  Christum). 


338  THE   REFORMATION 

More  and  more  the  visions  of  a  secular  knighthood  transformed 
themselves  into  visions  of  a  spiritual  knighthood  under  Christ 
as  the  Leader.  He  exchanged  the  romance  of  Amadis  for  the 
lives  of  the  saints.  The  romantic  devotion  of  a  knight  to  his 
lady  turned  into  an  analogous  consecration  to  the  Virgin, 
before  whose  image  he  hung  up  his  lance  and  shield.  Tor- 
mented for  a  long  time  with  remorse  and  despondency,  with 
alternations  of  peace  and  joy,  he  at  length  found  reUef  in  the 
conviction  that  his  gloomy  feelings  were  inspirations  of  the  evil 
spirit,  and  therefore  to  be  trampled  under  foot  and  cast  out. 
He  did  not  escape  from  his  mental  distress,  as  Luther  did,  by 
resting  on  the  Word  of  God  and  the  revealed  method  of  for- 
giveness, but  in  a  way  more  consonant  with  the  singular  char- 
acteristics of  his  mind.'  The  legal  system  of  the  Middle  Ages 
had  always  produced  a  yearning  for  rapturous,  ecstatic  experi- 
ences, which  might  afford  that  inward  assurance  of  salvation 
which  the  accepted  theory  of  Justification  could  not  yield. 
At  Paris,  where  Ignatius  went  to  study  theology,  he  brought 
completely  under  his  influence  his  two  companions,  Faber  and 
Francis  Xavier.  In  a  cell  of  the  College  of  St.  Barbara,  the 
first  steps  were  taken  in  the  formation  of  this  powerful  and 
celebrated  society.  Three  other  Spaniards  joined  the  same 
enthusiastic  circle.  They  took  upon  them  the  vow  of  chastity, 
swore  to  spend  their  lives,  if  possible,  at  Jerusalem,  in  absolute 
poverty,  in  the  care  of  Christians,  or  in  efforts  to  convert  the 
Saracens;  or,  if  this  should  not  be  permitted  them,  they 
engaged  to  offer  themselves  to  the  Pope,  to  be  sent  wherever 
he  should  wish,  and  to  do  whatever  he  should  command.  In 
Venice  they  were  ordained  as  priests,  and  here  it  became  evi- 
dent that  the  appointed  theater  of  their  labors  was  Europe, 
and  not  the  East.  In  1540  their  order  was  sanctioned;  in  1543, 
unconditionally.  They  chose  Ignatius  for  their  President.  The 
new  order  was  exempt  from  those  monastic  exercises  which 
consume  the  time  of  monks  generally,  and  was  left  free  for 
practical  labors.  These  were  principally  preaching,  hearing 
confession,  and  directing  individual  consciences,  and  the  edu- 
cation of  youth,  a  part  of  their  work  which  they  regarded, 
from  the  beginning,  as  in  the  highest  degree  essential.  The 
"Spiritual  Exercises"  of  Ignatius  was  the  text-book,  on  which 

•  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  i.  183. 


IGNATIUS   LOYOLA  339 

the  inward  life  of  the  members  was  molded,  and  which 
served  as  a  guide  in  the  management  of  the  confessional.  The 
absolute  detaching  of  the  soul  from  the  world,  and  from  all  its 
objects  of  desire,  and  the  absolute  renunciation  of  self,  are 
cardinal  elements  in  the  spiritual  drill  set  forth  in  this  manual, 
in  four  main  divisions.  It  is  a  course  of  severe  and  prolonged 
introspection,  and  of  forced,  continuous  attention  to  certain 
themes  of  thought;  the  design  of  the  whole  being  to  bind  the 
will  immovably  in  the  path  of  religious  consecration.  This 
effect  is  produced  by  exciting,  and,  at  the  same  time,  subjugat- 
ing the  imagination.  It  is  the  narratives,  not  the  doctrines,  of 
the.  Gospel,  to  which  the  mind  is  riveted  in  prolonged  contempla- 
tion. The  aim  is  to  give  to  the  mental  perceptions  the  vivid- 
ness of  external  vision.  Ignatius  carries  the  ''reign  of  the 
senses  within  the  sphere  of  the  soul."  To  the  imaginative 
piety  of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  reveled  in  ecstasies  and  raptures, 
he  gives  a  systematic  form,  a  definite  direction.  The  effect  of 
a  discipline  like  this,  where  reason  gives  up  the  throne  to  im- 
agination, which  is  ever  excited  and  at  the  same  time  enslaved, 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  deleterious  upon  the  moral  nature. 
Yet  there  is  a  wide  contrast  between  the  Jesuitism  of  Loyola 
and  the  degenerate  Jesuitism  depicted  in  the  "Provincial 
Letters."  ' 

The  compact  organization  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  with  its 
three  grades  of  membership,  included  provisions  for  mutual 
oversight  of  such  a  character  that  the  General  even,  notwith- 
standing his  well-nigh  unlimited  power,  might  be  admonished, 
and,  on  adequate  grounds,  deposed  from  his  station.  The  one 
comprehensive  obligation  to  which  the  members  were  bound 
was  that  of  instant,  unquestioning,  unqualified  obedience.  To 
go  where  they  were  sent,  if  it  were  to  a  tribe  of  savages  in  the 
remotest  part  of  the  globe;  to  do  what  they  were  bidden,  with- 
out delay  and  without  a  murmur,  in  a  spirit  of  absolute  self- 
surrender,  "utque  cadaver,"  was  the  primal  duty.  Such  was 
the  origin  and  general  character  of  the  Society  which  was 
destined  to  wield  an  incalculable  influence  in  resuscitating 
Catholicism,  as  well  as  in  weakening,  and,  in  some  quarters, 
annihilating  the  power  of  its  adversaries. 

The  second  of  the  great  agencies  of  Catholic  renovation  was 

*  Martin,  Hist,  of  France,  viii.  205. 


340  THE   REFORMATION 

the  Tridentine  Council/  For  a  long  period,  the  project  of  a 
Council,  which  was  a  favorite  one  with  the  Reformers  for  some 
time,  and  which  the  Emperor  insisted  on,  was  repugnant  in  the 
/\  highest  degree  to  the  wishes  of  the  Popes.  A  general  council 
I  was  their  dread.  It  was  something,  however,  which  it  was 
I  more  and  more  difficult  to  avoid.  The  spread  of  heresy,  even 
in  Italy,  was  one  motive  which  made  Paul  III.  willing  to  con- 
— „  voke  such  an  assembly.  The  Council  of  Trent  was  formally 
opened  in  December,  1545.  The  great  question  was  whether  it 
should  begin  with  the  reform  of  the  Papacy,  or  with  definitions 
of  dogma.  In  other  words,  what  attitude  should  the  Council 
take  towards  the  Protestants?  A  conciliatory  or  antagonistic 
one?  Caraffa  was  sustained  in  his  poUcy  by  the  Jesuits.  The 
papal  influence  predominated,  and  having  defined  the  sources 
of  knowledge  of  Revealed  Religion  in  terms  that  left  the 
authority  of  tradition  unimpaired,  with  anathemas  against  the 
Protestant  doctrine  of  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Scriptures, 
the  Council  proceeded  to  condemn  the  Protestant  doctrine  of 
Justification,  disregarding  the  arguments  of  the  evangeUcal 
CathoUc  party  of  Contarini,  which  was  effectively  represented 
in  the  debate.  The  success  which  Charles  V.  was  gaining  in 
the  Smalcaldic  war  emboldened  the  ruling  party  at  Trent  to 
assert  the  old  dogmas  without  abatement  or  concession.  The 
theory  of  gradual  justification  and  of  merit  was  followed  by  an 
equally  positive  assertion  of  the  old  doctrine  of  the  Sacraments. 
The  history  of  the  Council  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
relations  of  the  Pope  to  Charles  V.  The  fullness  of  the  Em- 
peror's triumph,  so  much  beyond  the  desires  of  Paul  III.,  led 
to  an  attempt  by  him  to  transfer  the  Council  to  Bologna; 
and  the  jealousy  that  was  felt  on  account  of  the  greatness  of 
the  power  acquired  by  Charles  at  the  end  of  the  war,  and  on 

'  The  history  of  the  Council  of  Trent  has  been  written  by  two  authors  of  an 
opposite  temper,  Father  Paul  Sarpi,  an  enemy  of  the  papal  power,  and  Pallavi- 
cini,  its  defender  and  apologist.  Ranke  has  subjected  these  important  works  to 
a  searching  criticism  and  comparison,  in  the  Appendix  (§  ii.)  of  the  History  of 
the  Popes.  He  says:  "Both  of  them  are  complete  partizans,  and  are  deficient 
in  the  spirit  of  an  historian,  which  seizes  upon  circumstances  and  objects  in  their 
full  truth,  and  brings  them  distinctly  to  view.  Sarpi  had  the  power  to  do  so, 
but  his  only  aim  was  to  attack ;  Pallavicini  had  infinitely  less  of  the  requisite 
talent,  and  his  object  was  to  defend  his  party  at  all  hazards."  Of  Sarpi,  Ranke 
observes  again:  "The  authorities  are  brought  together  with  diligence,  are  well 
handled,  and  used  with  consummate  talent :  we  cannot  say  that  they  are  falsi- 
fied, or  that  they  are  frequently  or  materially  altered ;  but  the  whole  work  is 
colored  with  a  tinge  of  decided  enmity  to  the  Papal  power." 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT  341 

account  of  the  Interim  and  the  rest  of  his  schemes  of  pacifi- 
cation, defeated  the  ends  which  the  Emperor  had  hoped  to  ac- 
comphsh.  Not  to  pm-sue  the  subject  into  its  details,  the  result 
of  all  of  the  negotiations  and  struggles  of  the  Council  was  that 
the  papal  power  escaped  without  curtailment.  Efforts  to  re- 
duce the  prerogatives  of  the  Pope  were  ingeniously  baffled. 
The  Professio  Fidei,  or  brief  formula  of  subscription  to  the 
Tridentine  Creed,  contained  a  promise  of  obedience  to  the  Pope. 
To  this  formulary  all  ecclesiastics  and  teachers  are  required  to 
give  their  assent.  The  Roman  Catechism  was  prepared  and 
published  under  the  direction  of  the  Pope,  by  the  authority  of 
the  Council;  the  Vulgate,  which  had  been  declared  authorita- 
tive in  controversies,  was  issued  in  an  authorized  edition,  and  a 
Breviary  and  a  Missal  put  forth  for  universal  use.  The  Council 
of  Trent  did  a  great  work  for  the  education  of  the  clergy, 
the  better  organization  of  the  whole  hierarchical  body,  and  the 
discipHne  of  the  Church.  Its  canons  of  reform  regulated  the 
duties  of  the  secular  and  regular  priesthood,  inculcated  the  ob- 
hgations  of  bishops,  and  introduced  a  new  order  and  efficiency 
in  the  management  of  parishes. 

The  Creed  of  Trent  was  definite  and  intelligible  in  its  denial 
of  the  distinguishing  points  of  Protestantism;  but  on  the  ques- 
tions in  dispute  between  Augustinian  and  semi-Pelagian  parties 
in  the  Church,  it  was  indefinite  and  studiously  ambiguous.  But 
the  Council,  both  by  its  doctrinal  formulas  and  its  reformatory 
canons,  contributed  very  much  to  the  consohdation  of  the 
Church  in  a  compact  body.  It  was  no  longer  necessary  to  seek 
for  the  standard  of  orthodoxy  in  the  various  and  conflicting 
writings  of  fathers  and  schoolmen,  or  in  the  multipHed  declara- 
tions of  the  Popes.  Such  a  standard  was  now  presented  in  a 
condensed  form  and  with  direct  reference  to  the  antagonistic 
doctrines  of  the  time. 

But  there  was  another  agency  of  a  different  character,  which  s^ 
was  set  in  motion  for  the  purpose  of  eradicating  heresy.  This 
was  the  Inquisition.  It  was  reorganized  in  Italy  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  Caraffa,  by  Paul  III.  in  1542,  as  the  Holy  Office 
for  the  Universal  Church.  Carafl"a  was  placed  at  the  head  of 
it;  and  in  1555  the  prime  author  and  the  stern  chief  of  this 
tribunal  became  Pope  under  the  name  of  Paul  IV.  The  In- 
quisition was  an  institution  which  had  its  origin  in  the  early 


342  THE   REFORMATION 

days  of  the  tliirteenth  century,  for  the  extirpation  of  the  Albi- 
gensian  heresy.  It  is  a  court,  the  pecuharity  of  which  Ues  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  expressly  constituted  for  the  detection  and 
punishment  of  heretics,  and  supersedes,  wholly  or  in  part,  in 
the  discharge  of  this  function,  the  bishops  or  ordinary  author- 
ities of  the  Church.  It  is  thus  an  extraordinary  tribunal,  with 
its  own  rules  and  methods  of  proceeding,  its  own  modes  of 
eHciting  evidence.  The  Spanish  Inquisition,  in  its  pecuUar 
form,  was  set  up  under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  the  first  in- 
stance for  the  purpose  of  discovering  and  punishing  the  converts 
from  Judaism  who  returned  to  their  former  creed.  The  atroc- 
ities of  which  it  was  guilty  under  Torquemada  make  a  dark 
and  bloody  page  of  Spanish  history.^  It  grew  into  an  institu- 
tion coextensive  with  the  kingdom,  with  an  extremely  tyrannical 
and  cruel  system  of  administration;  and  was  so  interwoven 
with  the  civil  government,  after  the  humbhng  of  the  nobles 
and  the  destruction  of  hberty  in  the  cities,  that  the  despotic 
rule  of  Charles  V.  and  of  Phihp  II.  could  hardly  have  been 
maintained  without  it.  It  was  an  engine  for  stifling  sedition  as 
well  as  heresy.  Hence  it  was  defended  by  the  Spanish  sover- 
eigns against  objections  and  complaints  of  the  Popes.  The 
Inquisition,  in  the  form  which  it  assumed  in  Italy,  under  the 
auspices  of  Caraffa,  cUffered  from  the  corresponding  institution 

'  Llorente,  Hist.  Critique  de  I'  Inquisition  d'  Espagne  (1817-18).  Llorente  was 
Secretary  of  the  Inquisition,  and  ha^ang  had  the  best  opportxinities  for  the  in- 
vestigation of  its  history,  spent  several  years  in  the  preparation  of  his  work.  The 
French  translation  of  Pellier  was  made  under  the  author's  eye.  Llorente  was  a 
liberal  priest,  in  sympathy  with  the  aims  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  a  sup- 
porter of  the  Bonaparte  rule  in  Spain.  He  believed  the  Inquisition  to  be  "vicious 
in  its  principle,  in  its  constitution,  and  in  its  laws"  (Pref.,  p.  x.),  and  he  had  no 
special  reverence  for  the  Popes.  Yet  at  the  time  of  the  composition  of  this  work, 
his  relation  to  the  Catholic  Church  was  not,  as  it  afterwards  became,  antagonistic. 
The  work  of  Llorente  has  been  unfavorably  criticised  by  Roman  Catholic  writers, 
especially  by  Hefele,  Der  Cardinal  Xiinenes,  etc.  (2d  ed.,  1851),  p.  241  seq.  Hefele 
insists,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  Spanish  Inquisition  was  predominantly  an  in- 
strument of  the  government,  and  that  the  Popes  endeavored  to  check  the  severi- 
ties of  the  Holy  Office;  and,  secondly,  that  the  charges  of  cruelty  brought  against 
the  Inquisition  have  been  greatly  exaggerated.  Hefele 's  principal  point  is  Llo- 
rente's  alleged  miscalculation  of  the  number  of  victims  of  the  Inquisition.  It 
is  to  be  observed  that  most  of  his  animadversions  upon  Llorente,  Hefele  is  obliged 
to  sustain  by  information  which  Llorente  himself  furnishes.  Hefele  considers  that 
Prescott  has  erred  in  some  particulars,  through  the  influence  of  Llorente.  Pres- 
cott's  account  of  the  Inquisition  is  in  his  History  of  the  Reign  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  i.  ch.  vii.  Hefele  has  much  to  say  of  the  disposition  of  the  Jews  to  make 
proselytes,  which  he  considers  a  palliation  of  the  course  taken  by  the  Inquisition. 
But  the  vast  number  of  insincere  Jewish  converts  to  Christianity,  who  furnished 
business  to  the  Inquisition,  proves  that  the  "  prosely ten-macherei "  was  not  so 
much  on  the  side  of  the  Jews. 


THE   INQUISITION  343 

in  Spain,  in  some  respects,  but  it  resembled  the  latter  in  super- 
seding the  ordinary  tribunals  for  the  exercise  of  discipline,  and 
was  founded  on  the  same  general  principles.  Six  cardinals 
were  made  inquisitors  general,  with  power  to  constitute  in- 
ferior tribunals,  and  with  authority,  on  both  sides  of  the  Alps, 
to  incarcerate  and  try  all  suspected  persons  of  whatever  rank  or 
order!  The  terrible  macliinery  of  this  court  was  at  once  set 
in  motion  in  the  States  of  the  Church,  and  although  resistance 
was  offered  in  Venice  and  in  other  parts  of  Italy,  the  Inquisition 
gradually  extended  its  active  sway  over  the  whole  peninsula. 
The  result  was  that  the  open  profession  of  Protestantism  was 
instantly  suppressed.  The  Popes  after  Caraffa,  especially  Sixtus 
v.,  increased  its  powers  and  the  number  of  its  officials.  In 
1542,  prior  to  the  formal  establishment  of  the  Holy  Office, 
Ochino  and  Peter  Martyr,  unwilfing  longer  to  conceal  their  ad- 
hesion to  the  Protestant  faith,  and  being  no  longer  safe  in  Italy, 
had  left  their  country  and  found  refuge  with  the  Protestants 
north  of  the  Alps.  Equal  amazement  was  occasioned  when, 
in  1548,  Vergerio,  bishop  of  Capo  dTstria,  a  man  of  distinction, 
who  had  been  employed  in  important  embassies  by  the  Pope, 
followed  their  example.  A  multitude  of  suspected  persons  fled 
to  the  Orisons  and  to  other  parts  of  Switzerland.  The  acade- 
mies at  Modena  and  elsewhere  were  broken  up.  The  Duchess 
of  Ferrara  was  compelled  to  part  from  all  of  her  Protestant 
friends  and  dependents,  and  was  herself  subjected  to  constraint 
by  her  husband.  The  Protestant  church  of  Locarno  was  driven 
out,  under  circumstances  of  great  hardship,  and  found  an  asy- 
lum in  Switzerland.  Imprisonment,  torture,  and  the  flames 
were  everywhere  employed  for  the  destruction  of  heterodox 
opinions.  At  Venice  the  practice  was  to  take  the  unhappy 
victim  out  upon  the  sea  at  midnight  and  to  place  him  on  a 
plank,  between  two  boats,  which  were  rowed  in  opposite  direc- 
tions, leaving  him  to  sink  beneath  the  waves.  Many  distin- 
guished men  were  banished;  others,  as  Aonio  Paleario  and 
Carnesecchi,  were  put  to  death.  The  Waldensian  settlement 
in  Calabria  was  barbarously  massacred.  One  essential  part  of 
the  work  of  the  Inquisition,  and  a  part  in  which  it  attained  to 
surprising  success,  was  the  suppression  of  heretical  books.  The 
booksellers  were  obliged  to  purge  their  stock  to  an  extent  that 
was  almost  ruinous   to   their   business.     So  vigUant   was   the 


344  THE   REFORMATION 

detective  police  of  the  Inquisition,  that  of  the  thousands  of 
copies  of  the  evangelical  book  on  the  "Benefits  of  Christ,"  it 
was  long  supposed  that  not  one  was  left/  In  a  more  recent 
period  some  surviving  copies  have  come  to  light.  As  a 
part  of  the  repressive  system  of  Caraffa,  the  "Index"  of  pro- 
hibited books  was  established.  Besides  the  particular  authors 
and  books  which  were  condemned,  there  was  a  list  of  more 
than  sixty  printers,  all  of  whose  publications  were  prohibited. 
Caraffa  put  upon  the  Index  the  Consilium  or  Advice,  which  in 
connection  with  Sadolet  and  others  he  himself  had  offered  to 
Paul  III.,  on  the  subject  of  a  reformation,  and  in  which  ec- 
clesiastical abuses  had  been  freely  censured.^  Later,  under  the 
auspices  of  Sixtus  V.,  the  "Index  Expurgatorius "  arose,  for 
the  condemnation,  not  of  entire  works,  but  of  particular  pas- 
sages in  permitted  books.  The  sweeping  persecution  which 
was  undertaken  by  the  Catholic  Reaction  did  not  spare  the 
evangelical  Catholics,  whose  views  of  Justification  were  ob- 
noxious to  the  faction  that  had  gained  the  ascendency.  They 
were  regarded  and  treated  as  little  better  than  avowed  enemies 
of  the  Church.  Even  Cardinal  Pole,  who  had  forsaken  Eng- 
land rather  than  accede  to  the  measures  of  Henry  VIII.,  and 
had  been  made  Papal  Legate  and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
imder  Mary,  was  in  disgrace  at  the  time  of  his  death,  which  was 
simultaneous  with  that  of  the  Queen.  Cardinal  Morone,  the 
Archbishop  of  Modena,  charged  with  circulating  Paleario's 
book  on  the  Atonement,  with  denying  the  merit  of  good  works, 
and  with  like  offenses,  was  imprisoned  for  about  two  years, 
until  the  death  of  Paul  IV.,  in  1559,  set  him  free.  The  char- 
acteristic spirit  of  the  dominant  party  is  seen  in  the  impracti- 
cable demand  of  this  Pope  that  the  sequestered  property  of  the 
monasteries  in  England  should  be  restored.  This  party  suc- 
ceeded in  virtually  extinguishing  Protestantism  in  Italy. 

In  Spain  a  literary  spirit  had  early  arisen  from  the  influence 
of  the  Arabic  schools.^     The  Erasmian  culture  found  a  cordial 

'  Macaulay,  in  his  Review  of  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes  {Ed.  Rev.,  1840), 
said  of  this  book,  "It  is  now  as  hopelessly  lost  as  the  second  decade  of  Livy." 

^  For  the  proof  of  this,  see  McCne,  p.  61. 

^  McCrie,  History  of  the  Progress  and  Suppression  of  the  Reformation  in  Spain 
in  the  Sixteenth  Century  (new  ed.,  1856).  This  work  is  the  companion  of  the  HiS' 
tory  of  the  Reformation  in  Italy,  and  of  scarcely  less  value. 


SPANISH   PROTESTANTS  345 

reception.  There  grew  up  an  Erasmian  and  an  anti-Erasmian 
Party.  "The  Complutensian  Polyglot"  was  an  edition  of  the 
Scriptures  that  reflects  much  credit  upon  Cardinal  Ximenes,  by 
whom  it  was  issued.  He  not  only  was  active  in  the  reform  of 
the  monks  and  clergy;  he  was  a  patron  of  scholars.  Yet,  he 
was  opposed  to  rendering  the  Bible  into  the  vernacular  of  the 
people,  and  was  a  supporter  of  the  Inquisition.  The  resent- 
ment which  this  odious  tribunal  awakened,  wherever  a  love  of 
freedom  lingered,  predisposed  some  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
doctrine  which  it  persecuted.  The  intercourse  with  Germany 
and  the  Netherlands,  into  which  many  Spaniards,  both  laymen 
and  clergy,  were  brought  from  the  common  relation  of  these 
countries  to  Charles  V.,  made  the  Protestant  doctrines  familiar 
to  many,  of  whom  not  a  few  regarded  them  with  favor.  It 
was  observed  that  Spanish  ecclesiastics  who  sojourned  in  Eng- 
land after  the  marriage  of  Philip  II.  to  Mary,  came  back  to  their 
coimtry,  tinged  with  the  heresy  which  they  had  gone  forth  to 
oppose.  The  war  of  Charles  V.  against  Clement  VII.,  which 
led  to  the  sack  of  Rome  and  the  imprisonment  of  the  Pontiff,  and 
the  presence  of  a  great  body  of  Spanish  clergy  and  nobles  at 
the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  where  the  Protestants  presented  their 
noble  confession,  were  events  not  without  a  favorable  influence 
in  the  same  direction.  As  early  as  1519  the  famous  printer  of 
Basel,  John  Froben,  sent  to  Spain  a  collection  of  Luther's  tracts 
in  Latin,  and  during  the  next  year  the  Reformer's  commentary 
on  the  Galatians,  in  which  his  doctrine  was  fully  exhibited, 
was  translated  into  Spanish.  Spanish  translations  of  the  Bible 
were  printed  at  Antwerp  and  Venice,  and  notwithstanding  the 
watchfulness  of  the  Inquisition,  copies  of  them,  as  well  as  other 
publications  of  the  Protestants,  were  introduced  into  Spain  in 
large  numbers.  Some  Spaniards  perished  abroad,  martyrs  to 
the  Protestant  faith;  as  Jayme  Enzinas,  a  cultivated  scholar, 
who  was  burned  at  Rome  in  1546,  and  Juan  Diaz,  who  was 
assassinated  in  Germany  by  a  fanatical  brother,  who  had  tried 
in  vain  to  convert  him,  and  who,  having  accomplished  his  act 
of  bloody  fratricide,  escaped  into  Italy  and  was  protected  from 
punishment.  It  was  at  Seville  and  Valladolid  that  Protestant- 
ism obtained  most  adherents.  Those  who  adopted  the  reformed 
interpretation  of  the  Gospel  generally  contented  themselves 
with  promulgating  it,  without  an  open  attack  on  the  Catholic 


346  THE   REFORMATION 

theology  or  the  Church.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  alone  which,  here  as  in  Italy,  gained  most  currency.  In 
Seville  the  evangelical  views  were  introduced  by  Rodrigo  de 
Valero,  a  man  of  rank  and  fashion,  whose  character  had  been 
transformed  by  the  reception  of  them,  and  who  promulgated 
them  in  conversation  and  in  expositions  of  the  Scripture  to 
private  circles.  He  was  saved  from  the  flames  only  by  the 
favor  of  persons  in  authority,  but  was  imprisoned  in  a  convent. 
The  most  eminent  preachers  of  the  city.  Dr.  John  Egidius,  and 
Constantine  Ponce  de  la  Fuente,  who  had  been  chaplain  of  the 
Emperor,  enlisted  in  the  new  movement.  The  predominant 
opinion  in  Seville  was  on  the  side  of  this  real,  though  covert, 
Protestantism.  It  found  a  reception,  also,  in  cloisters  of  the 
city,  especially  in  one  belonging  to  the  Hieronymites.  Both  in 
Seville  and  Valladolid  there  were  secret  churches,  fully  organized, 
and  meeting  in  privacy  for  Protestant  worship.  In  Valladolid 
the  Protestant  cause  had  a  distinguished  leader  in  the  person 
of  Augustine  Cazalla,  the  Imperial  chaplain,  who  was  put  to 
death  by  the  Inquisition  in  1559.  There  were  probably  two 
thousand  persons  in  various  parts  of  Spain  who  were  united  in 
the  Protestant  faith  and  held  private  meetings  for  a  number  of 
years.  A  large  proportion  of  them  were  persons  distinguished 
for  their  rank  or  learning.  The  discovery  of  these  secret  asso- 
ciations at  Seville  and  Valladolid  stimulated  the  Inquisition 
to  redoubled  exertions.  The  flight  of  many  facilitated  the  de- 
tection of  others  who  remained.  The  dungeons  were  filled  and 
the  terrible  implements  of  torture  were  used  to  extort  confes- 
sions not  only  from  men,  but  from  refined  and  delicately  trained 
women.  In  1559  and  1560,  two  great  autos  da  fe  were  held 
in  the  two  cities  where  heresy  had  taken  the  firmest  root.  The 
ceremonies  were  arranged  with  a  view  to  strike  terror  to  the 
hearts  of  the  sufferers  themselves  and  of  the  great  throngs  that 
gathered  as  spectators  of  the  scene.  The  condemned  were 
burned  alive,  those  who  would  accept  the  offices  of  a  priest, 
however,  having  the  privilege  of  being  strangled  before  their 
bodies  were  cast  into  the  fire.  The  King  and  royal  family,  the 
great  personages  of  the  court,  of  both  sexes,  gave  countenance 
to  the  proceedings  by  their  presence.  Similar  autos  da  fe 
occurred  in  various  other  places,  with  every  circumstance 
calculated  to  inspire  fear  in  the  beholders.    The  officers  of  the 


EXTIRPATION   OF   PROTESTANTISM   IN   SPAIN  347 

Inquisition  were  so  active  and  vigilant,  and  so  merciless,  that 
there  was  no  hope  for  any  who  were  inclined  to  Protestant 
opinions,  save  in  flight;  and  even  this  was  difficult.  Covet- 
ousness  allied  itself  to  fanaticism,  for  the  forfeiture  of  all  prop- 
erty was  a  part  of  the  penalty  invariably  visited  upon  heresy. 
Thus  Protestantism  was  eradicated.^  The  restraints  laid  upon 
liberty  of  teaching  smothered  the  intellectual  life  of  the  country. 
In  Spain,  as  in  Italy,  the  persecution  did  not  spare  the  Evan- 
gelical Catholics.  Among  these  was  Bartolome  de  Carranza, 
Archbishop  of  Toledo  and  Primate  of  Spain,  who  had  stood 
among  the  advocates  of  gratuitous  justification  at  the  Council 
of  Trent.  He  had  accompanied  Philip  II.  to  England  and 
taken  part  in  examining  Protestants  who  perished  at  the 
stake  under  Mary.  He  was  denounced  to  the  Inquisition  and 
imprisoned  at  Valladolid.  His  intimacy  with  Pole,  and  with 
Morone,  Flaminio,  and  other  eminent  Italians  who  were  in- 
clined to  evangelical  doctrine,  was  one  fact  brought  up  against 
him.  His  catechism,  partly  for  its  alleged  leaning,  in  some 
points,  to  the  Lutheran  theology,  and  partly  because  it  was 
written  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  was  the  principal  basis  of  the 
accusation.  He  was  charged  with  not  having  accused  before 
the  Holy  Ofhce  leading  Spanish  Protestants,  of  whose  senti- 
ments he  had  privately  expressed  his  disapprobation.  At  the 
end  of  seven  years  he  was  taken  to  Rome,  and  after  various 
delays,  Gregory  XIII.,  in  1576,  pronounced  sentence,  finding 
him  violently  suspected  of  heresy,  prohibiting  his  catechism, 
requiring  him  to  abjure  sixteen  Lutheran  articles,  and  suspend- 
ing him  from  his  office  for  five  years.  At  the  expiration  of 
this  time,  after  having  been  for  eighteen  years  under  some 
species  of  confinement,  he  died.  A  part  of  the  material  of 
accusation  against  Carranza  was  derived  from  the  words  of 
consolation  which  he  had  addressed  to  the  dying  Emperor, 
Charles  V.,  at  the  convent  of  Yuste.  Kneeling  at  his  bedside, 
the  Archbishop,  holding  up  a  crucifix,  exclaimed :  ''  Behold 
Him  who  answers  for  all !  There  is  no  more  sin ;  all  is  for- 
j^iven!"  His  words  gave  offense  to  some  who  were  present. 
Villabra,  the  Emperor's  favorite  preacher,  who  followed,  re- 
minded his  royal  master  that  as  he  was  born  on  the  day  of  St. 

*  For  details  of  persecution,   see   De  Castros,  Spanish  Protestants  (London, 
1851), 


348  THE   REFORMATION 

Matthew,  so  he  was  to  die  on  that  of  St.  Matthias.  With  such 
intercessors,  it  was  added,  he  had  nothing  to  fear.  "Thus," 
writes  Mignet,  "the  two  doctrines  that  divided  the  world  in 
the  age  of  Charles  V.,  were  once  more  brought  before  him  on 
the  bed  of  death."  ^  Besides  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  not 
less  than  eight  Spanish  bishops,  of  whom  the  most  had  sat  in 
the  Council  of  Trent,  and  twenty-five  doctors  of  theology, 
among  whom  were  persons  of  the  highest  eminence  for  learning, 
were  likewise  arraigned,  and  most  of  them  obliged  to  make 
some  retraction  or  submit  to  some  public  humiliation. 

It  is  a  remarkable  evidence  of  the  vitality  of  the  Catholic 
reaction  that  it  went  forward  in  spite  of  the  want  of  active 
sympathy  on  the  part  of  certain  Popes  with  its  favorite  measures, 
or  the  inconsistency  of  their  policy  with  its  spirit  and  aims. 
What  the  new  movement  required,  and  the  result  towards 
which  it  tended  was  the  union  of  the  Catholic  powers ;  especially 
an  alliance  of  the  Pope  and  Spain.  WTien  Caraffa  at  the  age  of 
seventy-nine  ascended  the  papal  throne,  his  strongest  passion 
seemed  to  be  his  hatred  of  Charles  V.  and  the  Spaniards.  With 
all  his  zeal  for  the  reform  of  which  he  had  been  one  of  the  earli- 
est promoters,  he  advanced  his  relatives  to  high  stations,  not 
from  that  selfish  ambition  from  which  nepotism  had  previously 
sprung,  but  in  order  to  carry  out  his  schemes  of  hostility  to 
Spain.  His  stoutest  defenders  against  Alva  were  Germans, 
most  of  whom  were  Protestants;  he  even  invoked  the  help  of 
the  Turks.  The  defeat  of  his  French  allies  at  St.  Quentin, 
followed  by  the  complete  success  of  Alva,  forced  upon  him 
a  change  of  policy.  Forthwith  he  resumed  with  absorbing 
energy  his  enterprises  of  reform,  and  discarded  his  relations, 
whom  he  had  found  to  be  treacherous.  This  was  the  end  of 
the  nepotism  which  so  long  had  brought  disgrace  and  weakness 
upon  the  papal  office.  But  the  war  that  he  kindled  aided  the 
cause  of  Protestantism  in  France  and  in  the  Netherlands,  and 
also  in  England.  His  political  schemes  were  partly  responsible 
for  his  arrogant  treatment  of  Elizabeth,  whom  he  did  not  wish 
to  marry  Philip,  and  whom  he  did  wish  Mary  Stuart,  the  can- 
didate of  the  Guises,  to  supplant.  In  Pius  IV.  (1559-65)  we 
have  a  pontiff  who  personally  did  not  sympathize  much  with 
the  Inquisition,  yet  left  it  to  pursue  its  course  unhindered.     He 

«  Robertson,  Hist,  of  Charles  V.  (Prescott's  ed.),  iii-  491,  492. 


THE  CATHOLIC   REACTION  349 

labored  to  unite  the  Catholic  world,  and  succeeded  in  pacifying 
the  divisions  in  the  Council  of  Trent  by  skillful  negotiations 
with  the  different  sovereigns.  Pius  V.  (1566-72)  was  a  devoted 
representative  of  the  rigid  party,  was  zealous  on  the  one  hand 
for  the  reformation  of  the  papal  court,  and  on  the  other  for  the 
destruction  of  heretics.  He  induced  Duke  Cosmo  of  Florence 
to  deliver  up  to  him  Carnesecchi,  an  accomplished  literary 
man,  who,  influenced  by  Valdes,  had  early  favored  Protestant- 
ism, and  had  him  brought  to  Rome,  where  he  was  beheaded 
and  his  body  committed  to  the  flames.^  He  approved  of  Alva's 
doings  in  the  Netherlands.  Gradually  the  Papacy  came  to 
join  hands  with  Spain  in  the  grand  effort  to  overcome  Protes- 
tantism. Sixtus  V.  excommunicated  Henry  IV.  of  France 
(1585).  He  lent  his  most  earnest  cooperation  to  the  effort  to 
conquer  England  by  the  Armada.  He  was  heart  and  soul 
with  Guise  and  the  League,  and  upon  the  assassination  of  Guise, 
excommunicated  Henry  III.  If  he  listened  favorably  to  the 
efforts  made  to  induce  him  to  absolve  and  recognize  Henry  of 
Navarre,  his  inclinations  in  this  direction  were  overcome  by 
the  energetic  remonstrances  of  Philip.^  It  was  the  hostile 
attitude  of  the  Papacy  that  strongly  affected  the  Catholic 
adherents  of  Navarre,  and  confirmed  them  in  the  disposition 
to  require  of  him  a  profession  of  the  Catholic  faith. 

Nothing  can  be  more  striking  than  the  change  in  the  intel- 
lectual spirit  of  Italy,  as  we  approach  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century.^  The  old  ardor  in  the  study  and  imitation  of  the 
ancients  has  passed  away.  Even  the  reverence  that  spared  the 
architectural  remains  of  antiquity  is  supplanted  in  the  mind 
of  Sixtus  v.,  for  example,  by  the  desire  to  rear  edifices  that 
may  rival  them.  A  zeal  for  independent  investigation,  espe- 
cially in  natural  science,  takes  the  place  of  antiquarian  scholar- 
ship; but  this  new  scientific  spirit,  which  often  took  a 
speculative  turn,  was  checked  and  repressed  by  the  ecclesiastical 
rulers.  Loyalty  to  the  Church,  and  a  religious  temper,  in  the 
strict  form  which  the  Catholic  restoration  engendered,  pene- 
trated society.  Poetry,  painting,  and  music  were  at  once  reno- 
vated  and   molded   by   the   religious   influence.      Tasso,   who 

'  MeCrie,  Ref.  in  Italy,  p.  20. 

^  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  i.  387  seq.,  ii.  128  seq.,  iii.  115  seq.     Hiibner, 
Life  of  Sixtus  V.  (1872).  «  Ibid.,  i.  493. 


350  THE   REFORMATION 

chose  a  pious  crusader  for  the  hero  of  his  poem,  the  school  of 
Caracci,  Domenichino,  and  Guido  Reni,  Palestrina,  the  great 
composer,  suggest  the  revolution  in  public  feeling  and  taste 
in  this  age,  in  contrast  with  the  age  of  the  Renaissance.  The 
papal  court,  in  its  restored  strictness  and  sobriety,  manifested 
its  entire  subjection  to  the  new  movement.  In  a  character 
like  Carlo  Borromeo,  the  counter-reformation  appears  in  a 
characteristic  but  peculiarly  attractive  Hght.  Of  noble  birth, 
and  with  temptations  to  sensual  indulgence  thrown  in  his  path, 
he  devoted  himself  to  a  rehgious  Hfe  with  unwavering  fideUty. 
The  nephew  of  Pius  V.,  offices  of  the  highest  responsibiUty  were 
forced  upon  him,  which  he  cUscharged  with  so  exemplary  dili- 
gence and  faithfulness,  that  such  as  were  inchned  to  envy  or  to 
censure  were  compelled  to  applaud.  But  he  welcomed  the  day 
when  he  could  lay  them  down,  and  give  himself  wholly  to  his 
diocese  of  Milan,  where  he  was  archbishop.  His  untiring  per- 
severance in  works  of  charity  and  reform,  his  visitations  to 
remote,  mountainous  villages,  in  the  care  of  his  flock,  his  zeal 
for  education,  his  devoutness,  caused  him  to  be  styled,  in  the 
bull  that  canonized  him,  an  angel  in  human  form.  His  exertions 
in  making  proselytes,  and  his  willingness  to  persecute  heresy, 
are  less  agreeable  to  contemplate;  but  they  were  essential 
features  of  the  CathoUc  reaction. 

The  Jesuits  first  estabUshed  themselves  in  force  in  Italy, 
and  in  Portugal,  Spain,  and  their  colonies.  "Out  of  the  vis- 
ionary schemes  of  Ignatius,"  says  Ranke,  "arose  an  institu- 
tion of  singularly  practical  tendency;  out  of  the  conversions 
wrought  by  his  asceticism,  an  institution  framed  with  all  the 
just  and  accurate  calculation  of  worldly  prudence."  The 
education  of  youth,  especially  those  of  higher  rank,  quickly 
fell,  to  a  large  extent,  into  their  hands.  Their  system  of  intel- 
lectual training  was  according  to  a  strict  method;  but  their 
schools  were  pervaded  by  their  peculiar  rehgious  spirit.  It 
was  largely  through  their  influence  that  the  profane  or  secular 
tone  of  culture,  that  had  prevailed  in  the  cities  of  Italy,  was 
superseded  by  a  culture  in  which  reverence  for  religion  and  the 
Church  was  a  vital  element.  From  the  two  peninsulas  the  new 
order  extended  its  influence  into  the  other  countries  of  Europe. 
They  formed  a  great  standing  army,  in  the  service  of  the  Pope, 
for  the  propagation  of  CathoUcism.     The  University  of  Vienna 


THE   INFLUENCE   OF   THE   JESUITS  351 

was  placed  under  their  direction;  they  estabhshed  themselves 
at  Cologne  and  Ingolstadt  and  Prague,  and  from  these  centers 
operated  with  great  success  in  the  Austrian  dominions,  the 
Rhenish  provinces,  and  other  parts  of  Germany.  The  Duke 
of  Bavaria,  partly  from  worldly  and  partly  from  religious 
motives,  enlisted  warmly  in  the  cause  of  the  Catholic  reaction, 
and  made  liimself  its  champion.  In  the  ecclesiastical  states  of 
Germany,  the  spirit  of  Catholicism  was  reawakened,  and  the 
toleration  promised  to  Protestants  by  the  Peace  of  Augsburg 
was  frequently  violated.  The  Popes,  in  this  period,  were  liberal 
in  their  concessions  to  the  CathoHc  princes,  who  found  their 
profit  in  helping  forward  the  reactionary  movement.  In  the 
last  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  mainly  by  the  labors  of 
the  Jesuits,  and  by  the  violent  measures  which  they  instigated, 
the  tide  was  turned  against  Protestantism  in  southern  Germany, 
in  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Poland,  and  Hungary.  In  these  coun- 
tries, Protestantism  had,  on  the  whole,  gained  the  ascendency. 
Together  with  Belgium  and  France,  they  constituted  "the 
great  debatable  land,"  where  the  two  confessions  struggled  for 
the  mastery.  In  all  of  them,  Catholicism,  with  its  new  forces, 
was  triumphant.  The  Jesuits  did  much  to  promote  that  in- 
creased excitement  of  CathoHc  feeling  in  France,  which  showed 
itself  in  the  slaughter  of  St.  Bartholomew  and  the  wars  of  the 
League.  From  Douay,  the  establishment  founded  by  Cardinal 
William  Allen,  they  sent  out  their  emissaries  into  England. 
The  order  was  active  in  Sweden,  and,  for  a  time,  had  some 
prospect  of  winning  that  kingdom  back  to  the  Catholic  fold. 
Wherever  they  did  not  prevail,  they  sharpened  the  mutual  an- 
tagonism of  the  rival  confessions.  The  progress  of  the  Catholic 
restoration  was  aided,  especially  in  Germany,  by  the  quarrels 
of  Protestant  theologians.  The  mutual  hostihty  of  Lutheran 
and  Calvinist  appeared,  in  some  cases,  to  outweigh  their  com- 
mon opposition  to  Rome. 

The  question  has  often  been  asked,  why,  after  so  rapid  an 
advance  of  Protestantism  for  a  half-century,  a  limit  should  then 
have  been  set  to  its  progress?  Why  was  it  unable  to  overstep 
the  bounds  which  it  reached  in  the  first  age  of  its  existence? 
Macaulay  has  handled  this  question  in  a  spirited  essay,  in  which, 
with    certain   reasons,    which   are    pertinent   and    valuable,  is 


352  THE   REFORMATION 

coupled  a  singular  denial  that  the  knowledge  of  religion  is  pro- 
gressive, or  at  all  dependent  upon  the  general  enlightenment  of 
the  human  mind.  Apart  from  his  paradoxical  speculation  on 
this  last  point,  his  statement  of  the  grounds  of  the  arrest  of 
the  progress  of  Protestantism,  though  eloquent  and  valuable, 
is  quite  incomplete.  The  principal  causes  of  this  event  we 
deem  to  be  the  following :  — 

1.  The  ferment  that  attended  the  rise  of  Protestantism 
must  eventually  lead  to  a  crystallizing  of  parties;  and  this 
must  raise  up  a  barrier  in  the  way  of  the  further  spread  of  the 
new  doctrine.  Protestantism  was  a  movement  of  reform,  aris- 
ing within  the  Church.  At  the  outset,  multitudes  stood,  in 
relation  to  it,  in  the  attitude  of  inquirers.  They  were  more  or 
less  favorably  inchned  to  it.  What  course  they  would  take 
might  depend  on  the  influences  to  which  they  would  happen 
to  be  exposed.  They  were  not  immovably  attached  to  the  old 
system;  they  were  open  to  persuasion.  But  as  the  conflict 
became  warm,  men  were  more  and  more  prompted  to  take 
sides,  and  to  range  themselves  under  one  or  the  other  banner. 
This  period  of  fluctuation  and  conversion  would  naturally  come 
to  an  end.  As  soon  as  the  spirit  of  party  was  thus  awakened, 
it  formed  an  obstacle  to  the  further  progress  of  the  new  opinions , 
for  this  spirit  communicated  itself  from  father  to  son. 

2.  The  political  arrangements  which  were  adopted  in  dif- 
ferent countries,  in  consequence  of  the  religious  division,  all 
tended  to  confine  Protestantism  within  the  limits  which  it  had 
early  attained.  In  Germany,  the  negotiations  and  disputes 
produced  by  the  religious  contest,  issued  in  the  adoption 
of  the  principle,  "cujus  regio,  ejus  religio";  the  religion  of  the 
State  shall  conform  to  that  of  the  prince.  This  principle,  how- 
ever, would  not  have  availed  to  arrest  Protestantism.  But 
the  "ecclesiastical  reservation"  did  thus  avail,  since  the  con- 
version of  an  ecclesiastical  ruler  to  the  new  faith  was  attended 
with  no  important  gain  to  the  Protestant  cause :  he  must  vacate 
his  office.  The  whole  tendency  of  political  arrangements  in 
Germany  was  to  build  up  a  wall  of  separation  between  the  two 
confessions,  and  to  protect  the  territory  of  each  from  encroach- 
ments by  the  other.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  spirit 
of  propagandism  did  not,  generally  speaking,  characterize 
Protestantism.     The  Protestants,  especially  in  Germany,  were 


ARREST   OF  THE   PROGRESS   OF   PROTESTANTISM       353 

satisfied  if  they  could  be  left  to  develop,  without  interference, 
their  own  system.  The  utmost  limit  of  their  demand  was  room 
for  its  natural  expansion/  In  the  Netherlands,  the  separation 
of  the  Walloon  provinces  from  the  other  states,  and  the  adher- 
ence of  the  former  to  Spain,  could  have  no  other  result  than 
to  perpetuate  their  connection  with  the  Catholic  Church.  In 
France,  the  civil  wars  and  the  political  settlement  to  which 
they  led  resulted  in  the  formation  of  the  Huguenots  into  a 
compact  body,  formidable  for  defense,  but  powerless  for  the 
propagation  of  their  faith. 

3.  The  counter-reformation  in  the  Catholic  Church,  by 
removing  the  gross  abuses  which  had  been  the  object  of  right- 
eous complaint,  took  a  formidable  weapon  from  the  hands  of 
the  Protestants.  At  the  same  time,  the  apathy  of  the  old 
Church  was  broken  up,  the  attention  of  its  rulers  was  no  longer 
absorbed  in  ambitious  schemes  of  politics,  or  in  the  gratification 
of  a  Hterary  taste,  which  made  the  papal  court  a  rendezvous  of 
authors  and  artists ;  but  a  profound  zeal  for  the  doctrines  and 
forms  of  the  Roman  Catholic  rehgion  pervaded  and  united  all 
ranks  of  its  disciples. 

4.  While  tliis  concentration  of  forces  was  taking  place  on 
the  Catholic  side,  Protestants  more  and  more  spent  their 
strength  in  contests  with  one  another.  Their  mutual  intoler- 
ance facihtated  the  advance  of  their  common  enemy.  More- 
over, the  warm,  rehgious  feeling  that  animated  the  early 
Reformers  and  the  princes  who  defended  their  cause  passed  away 
to  a  considerable  degree,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  theological 
rigidness,  or  a  selfish,  political  spirit.  The  appearance  of  such 
a  character  as  Maurice  of  Saxony,  in  so  marked  contrast  with 
the  Electors  who  listened  to  the  voice  of  Luther,  and  even  with 
the  Landgrave  Philip  of  Hesse,  indicates  the  advent  of  an  era 
when  a  more  politic  and  selfish  temper  displaces  the  simplicity 
of  religious  principle.  Queen  EHzabeth,  with  her  lukewarm 
attachment  to  the  Reformation,  and  her  mendacious,  crooked 
policy,  is  a  poor  representative  of  the  rehgious  character  of 

1  "Wie  wir  ofter  bemerkt,  der  Protestantismus  ist  nicht  bekehrender  Natur. 
Es  wird  sich  jedes  Beitritts,  der  aus  Ueberzeugung  entspringt,  als  eines  Fort- 
ganges  seiner  guten  Sache  freuen  :  sonst  aber  schon  zufrieden  sein,  wenn  nur  selber 
verstattet  ist,  sich  ungeirrt  von  fremder  Einwirkung  zu  entwickeln.  Dies  war  es, 
wonach  die  evangelisclien  Fiirsten  vom  ersten  Augenblick  an  strebten."  — Ranke, 
Deutsche  Geschichte,  v.  278. 


354  THE   REFORMATION 

Protestantism.  How  much  more  intense  and  consistent  was 
the  reUgious  zeal  of  the  secular  leader  of  the  Catholic  restora- 
tion, PhiUp  II. !  The  ardor  of  Protestants  spent  itself  in  do- 
mestic discord,  at  the  very  time  when  the  ardor  of  Cathohcism 
was  exerted,  with  undivided  energy,  against  them. 

5.  The  better  organization  of  the  Catholic  Church  was 
a  signal  advantage  in  the  battle  with  Protestantism,  which  was 
divided  into  as  many  churches  as  there  were  political  communi- 
ties that  embraced  the  new  doctrine.  On  the  Cathohc  side 
there  was  a  better  chance  for  a  plan  of  operations,  having  re- 
spect not  to  a  single  country  alone,  a  separate  portion  of  the 
field  of  combat,  but  formed  upon  a  survey  of  the  whole  situa- 
tion, and  carried  out  with  sole  reference  to  a  united  success. 

6.  Another  source  of  power  in  the  Catholic  Church  grew 
out  of  the  habit  of  avaihng  itself  of  all  varieties  of  religious 
temperament,  of  turning  to  the  best  account  the  wide  diversity 
of  talents  and  character  which  is  developed  within  its  fold. 
The  dispassionate  and  astute  pohtician,  the  laborious  scholar, 
the  subtle  and  skillful  polemic,  the  fiery  enthusiast,  are  none  of 
them  rejected,  but  all  of  them  assigned  to  a  work  suited  to  their 
respective  capacities.  Men  as  dissimilar  as  Bellarmine  and 
Ignatius  were  engaged  in  a  common  cause,  and  were  even  within 
the  same  fraternity.  This  custom  of  the  Catholic  Church  is 
often  attributed  to  a  profound  policy.  But  whatever  sagacity 
it  may  indicate,  it  is  probably  due  less  to  the  calculations  of  a 
far-sighted  policy,  than  to  an  habitual  principle,  or  way  of 
thinking  in  religion,  which  is  inherent  in  the  genius  of  Cathol- 
icism, It  has  been  justly  observed  that  men  of  the  type  of 
John  Wesley,  who,  among  Protestants,  have  been  forced  to  be- 
come the  founders  of  distinct  religious  bocUes,  would  have  found 
within  the  Catholic  Church,  had  they  been  born  there,  hospi- 
table treatment  and  congenial  employment.  The  host  that  was 
marshaled  under  the  command  of  the  Pope,  for  the  defense 
of  Catholicism,  was  like  an  army  that  includes  light-armed 
skirmishers  and  heavy-armed  artillerymen,  swift  cavalry,  and 
spies  who  can  penetrate  the  camp  and  pry  into  the  counsels  of 
the  enemy. 

7.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  southern  Europe  there  was 
manifested  a  more  rooted  attachment  to  the  Roman  Cathohc 
system    than  existed  among  the  nations  which    adopted   the 


ARREST   OF   THE   PROGRESS    OF   PROTESTANTISM       355 

Reformation.  In  Germany  the  common  people  gladly  heard  the 
teaching  of  Luther.  Protestantism  there  had  much  of  the  char- 
acter of  a  national  movement.  In  Italy  and  Spain  it  was 
mainly  the  lettered  class  that  received  the  new  doctrine. 
Below  a  certain  grade  of  culture  few  were  affected  by  it.  Even 
in  France,  which  had  something  like  a  middle  position  between 
the  two  currents  of  opinion,  it  was  the  intelligent  middle  class, 
together  with  scholars  and  nobles,  that  furnished  to  Protes- 
tantism its  adherents.  In  Italy  and  Spain  the  new  doctrine 
did  not  reach  down  to  the  springs  of  national  life.  Moreover, 
it  is  remarkable  that  in  these  nations  which  remained  Catholic, 
so  many  who  went  so  far  as  to  receive  the  evangelical  doctrine 
substantially  as  it  was  held  by  the  Protestants  were  not  im- 
pelled to  cast  off  the  polity  or  worship  of  the  old  Church.  This 
circumstance  is  far  from  being  wholly  due  to  timidity.  The 
outward  forms  of  Protestantism  were  less  necessary,  less  con- 
genial to  them;  the  outward  forms  of  Catholicism  were  less 
obnoxious.  Even  in  France,  this  same  phenomenon  appeared 
in  the  circle  that  early  gathered  about  Lefevre  and  Brigonnet, 
and  especially  in  Margaret  of  Navarre  and  her  followers.  The 
doctrine  of  gratuitous  salvation  through  the  merits  of  Christ, 
the  inwardness  of  piety,  as  fostered  by  the  evangelical  doctrine, 
were  grateful  to  them;  but  they  were  not  moved  to  renounce 
the  government  or  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church,  or  to  affihate 
themselves  with  the  Protestant  body. 

When  all  these  circumstances  are  contemplated,  it  will 
cease  to  be  a  matter  of  wonder  that  Protestantism,  after  its 
first  great  victories  were  won,  halted  in  its  course  and  was  at 
length  shut  up  within  fixed  boundaries. 

But  the  CathoHc  party  were  destined  to  suffer  from  internal 
discord.  Before  the  close  of  the  century,  the  followers  of 
Ignatius,  who  were  semi-Pelagian  in  their  theology,  became 
involved  in  a  hot  strife  with  the  Dominicans,  who  in  common 
with  their  master,  Aquinas,  were  nearer  to  Augustine  in  their 
view  of  the  relation  of  grace  to  free  will.  The  theological  con- 
flict that  was  thus  kindled  was  of  long  continuance,  and  brought 
serious  disasters  upon  the  Catholic  Church,  and,  in  its  ultimate 
effect,  upon  the  Jesuit  order.  This  was  one  of  a  number  of 
adverse  influences  which  conspired  finally  to  paralyze  the  Catho- 
lic reaction,  and  to  stop  the  progress  of  the  counter-reformation. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    STRUGGLE    OF    PROTESTANTISM    IN   THE    SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 

The  Catholic  Reaction,  of  which  the  Pope  was  the  spiritual, 
and  Philip  11. ,  the  secular  chief,  experienced  a  terrible  reverse 
in  the  ruin  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  and  the  failure  of  that  gigan- 
tic project  for  the  conquest  of  England.  The  establishment  of 
Henry  IV.  on  the  throne  of  France  was  a  still  more  discouraging 
blow.  France,  the  Netherlands,  and  Great  Britain  were  the 
principal  theater  of  the  efforts  which  had  for  their  end  the  politi- 
cal predominance  of  the  Spanish  monarchy  and  the  spiritual 
supremacy  of  Rome.  The  struggle  of  Protestantism  continues 
through  the  greater  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Gradu- 
ally the  Catholic  Reaction  expended  its  force,  and  political 
motives  and  ideas  subordinated  the  impulses  of  fanaticism. 

The  principal  topics  to  be  considered  are  the  thirty  years' 
war;  the  English  revolutions;  the  domestic  and  foreign  policy 
of  Richelieu  and  of  Louis  XIV.  The  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  falls 
principally  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  or  the 
period  following  the  great  European  settlement,  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia.  Yet  some  notice  of  this  reign  is  requisite  for  a  full 
view  of  the  conflict  of  Protestantism  and  Catholicism.^ 

Charles  V.  had  found  himself  deceived  in  his  political  calcu- 
lations, and  baffled  by  the  moral  force  of  the  Protestant  faith 
in  Germany.  His  final  defeat  in  the  attempt  to  subjugate  the 
Protestants  left  the  Empire  weak.  It  is  not  true  that  Germany 
lost  its  political  unity  through  the  Reformation,  for  this  unity 
was  practicafly  gone  before;  rather  is  it  true  that  then  it  sacri- 
ficed the  opportunity  of  recovering  its  unity  and  of  placing  it  on 
an  enduring  foundation.     The  Reformation  in  Germany,  more 

*  Hausser,  Geschichte  des  Zeitalters  d.  Reformation  (1868).  Von  Raumer, 
Geschichte  Europas  seit  d.  Ende  d.  15.  Jahr.,  vol.  iii.  Laurent,  Les  Nationalites, 
1.  I.  ch.  iv.  Ranke,  Geschichte  Wallensteins  (3d  ed.,  1872).  Carlyle,  History  of 
Frederic  II.,  vol.  i.,  b.  iii.,  chaps,  xiv.,  xvi. 

356 


CAUSES   OF   THE  THIRTY   YEARS'   WAR  357 

than  in  any  other  country,  emanated  not  from  statesmen  and 
rulers,  but  from  the  hearts  of  the  people.  It  was  hindered  from 
being  universal  by  the  obstacles  cast  in  its  way  and  by  its  own 
internal  divisions. 

The  Peace  of  Augsburg,  unsatisfactory  as  its  provisions  were 
to  both  parties,  effected  its  end  as  long  as  the  emperors  were 
impartial  in  their  administration.  This  was  true  of  Ferdinand 
I.,  whose  accession  was  resisted  by  Paul  IV.,  the  enemy  of  his 
House;  and  it  was  true  especially  of  Maximilian  II.,  who  was 
himself  strongly  inclined  to  Protestant  opinions,  and  was  openly 
charged  with  heresy  by  Catholic  zealots.  Under  his  tolerant 
sway,  Protestantism  spread  over  Austria,  with  the  exception  of 
the  rural  and  secluded  valleys  of  the  Tyrol.  Charles  V.  had  been 
obliged  to  relinquish  his  wish  to  hand  down  the  imperial  crown 
to  his  son  Philip.  Philip,  in  his  fanatical  exertions  against  Prot- 
estantism, did  not  receive  countenance  or  support  from  the 
Austrian  branch  of  his  family.  The  cruelties  of  Alva  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  were  con- 
demned and  deplored  by  the  Emperor.  Philip  was  so  afraid 
that  Maximilian  himself  would  join  the  Protestants  that  he 
deemed  it  necessary  to  dissuade  him,  by  the  most  pressing  ex- 
hortations, from  taking  such  a  step.  While  the  contest  was 
raging  in  the  Netherlands,  and  between  the  Huguenots  and  their 
enemies  in  France  the  Lutherans  of  Germany  remained  for  the 
most  part  neutral.  Their  hostility  to  Calvinism  had  much  to 
do  in  determining  their  position.  They  were  warned  by  William 
of  Orange  and  other  Protestants  abroad  that  the  cause  was  one, 
and  that  if  Catholic  fanaticism  were  not  checked,  Germany 
would  be  the  next  victim.  In  the  latter  portion  of  Maximil- 
ian's reign,  which  was  from  1564  to  1576,  the  Jesuits  came  in, 
and  disturbances  arose.  Rudolph  II.,  his  successor,  had  been 
brought  up  in  Spain,  and  was  under  the  influence  of  this  Order. 
The  same  spirit  characterized  Matthias,  who  followed  next.  In 
consequence  of  the  incompetence  of  Rudolph,  the  government 
of  Austria  and  Hungary  had,  during  his  life,  been  taken  from 
him  and  given  to  Matthias,  and  he  in  turn  gave  way,  in  like 
manner,  to  his  cousin  Archduke  Ferdinand  of  Styria,  a  bigoted 
Catholic  (1619-37).  Ferdinand  and  Maximilian,  Duke  of  Ba- 
varia, were  the  devoted  champions  of  the  Catholic  Reaction. 
Matthias  had  been  compelled  to  grant  a  letter  patent  to  the 


358  THE   REFORMATION 

Bohemians,  which  gave  them  full  religious  toleration  and  equal 
rights  with  the  Catholics.  Violations  of  the  Religious  Peace  in 
Germany  on  the  side  of  the  Catholics  were  frequent.  Bishops 
and  Catholic  cities  drove  out  their  Protestant  subjects  and 
abolished  Protestant  worship.  The  indignation  of  the  Prot- 
estants throughout  Germany  was  excited  by  the  treatment  of 
the  free  city  of  Donauworth,  which  was  exclusively  Protestant, 
and  refused  to  allow  processions  from  a  Catholic  convent,  these 
being  inconsistent  with  a  former  agreement.  The  city  was 
placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  and  the  Bavarian  Duke 
marched  against  it  with  an  overwhelming  force,  excluded  Prot- 
estant worship,  and  incorporated  the  town  with  his  own  terri- 
tories (1607).  Complaints  were  made  on  the  Catholic  side  of 
infractions  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Proviso,  which  ordained  that 
benefices  should  be  vacated  by  incumbents  who  should  embrace 
Protestantism.  The  Protestants  had  permitted  the  Emperor, 
in  the  Peace  of  Augsburg,  on  his  own  authority,  to  affirm  the 
Proviso,  which  they  themselves  at  the  same  time  firmly  refused 
to  adopt;  just  as  the  imperial  declaration  for  the  protection 
of  Protestant  communities  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Catholic 
prelates  had  been  permitted  by  the  other  party.  Protestant 
princes  had  given  to  benefices  lying  near  them,  which  had  already 
been  gained  to  the  Reformation,  bishops  or  administrators  from 
their  own  kinsmen;  and  at  the  diets  they  urged  the  complete 
abolishment  of  all  such  restrictions  upon  religious  freedom.^ 
But  the  Proviso  was  rigidly  enforced  in  the  case  of  the  Elector 
of  Cologne,  who  went  over  to  Protestantism  in  1582.  The  out- 
rage perpetrated  against  Donauworth  led  to  the  formation  of 
the  Evangelical  Union  (1608),  a  league  into  which,  however, 
all  the  Protestant  States  did  not  enter,  and  which  from  the 
beginning  was  weakly  organized.  But  the  Catholic  League, 
which  was  formed  to  oppose  it,  under  the  leadership  of  Maxi- 
milian of  Bavaria,  was  firmly  cemented  and  full  of  energy.  On 
the  Protestant  side,  in  addition  to  other  sources  of  discord,  the 
hostility  of  the  strict  Lutherans  to  the  Calvinists  was  a  continual 
and  fruitful  cause  of  division.  The  Bohemians  revolted  against 
Ferdinand  II.  in  1618,  when  their  religious  liberties  were  vio- 

*  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  1,  §  11.  Upon  the  history  and  interpretation  of  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Reservation,  see  Ranke,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  v.  265,  274  seq.  {Werke,  vii. 
7  seq.),  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  1,  §  9  and  n.  40. 


OPENING   OF   THE   THIRTY   YEARS'   WAR  359 

lated,  and  "according  to  the  good  old  Bohemian  custom/'  as  one 
of  the  nobles  expressed  it,  flung  two  of  the  imperial  councilors 
out  of  the  window.  When,  shortly  after,  on  the  death  of  Mat- 
thias, Ferdinand  became  his  successor,  the  Bohemians  refused 
to  acknowledge  him  as  their  king,  and  gave  the  crown  of  Bohe- 
mia to  Ferderic  V.,  the  Elector  Palatine,  and  the  son-in-law  of 
James  I.  of  England.  Ferdinand,  a  nursling  of  the  Jesuits,  who 
had  early  taken  a  vow  to  extirpate  heresy  in  his  dominions, 
which  he  had  kept,  up  to  the  measure  of  his  ability,  threw  him- 
self as  much  from  necessity  as  from  choice,  into  the  arms  of  the 
Catholic  League.  He  manifested  his  ardor  in  the  Catholic  cause 
by  an  assiduous  attention  to  religious  services.  For  example,  he 
took  part  in  a  procession  in  the  midst  of  a  storm  of  rain  emulat- 
ing thus  the  zeal  which  the  Emperor  Julian  displayed  in  cele- 
brating the  rites  of  heathenism.  Thus  the  Austrian  imperial 
house  took  up  the  work  which  had  been  laid  down  by  Charles  V., 
of  defending  and  propagating  Catholicism,  in  alliance  with  the 
Church.  The  Catholic  Reaction,  which  had  found  a  representa- 
tive in  Philip  II.,  found  another  leader  in  the  Emperor:  and  the 
two  branches  of  the  Hapsburg  family  were  more  united  in 
religious  sympathies.  The  Elector,  Frederic,  with  his  obtrusive 
Calvinism,  and  with  a  court  whose  customs  and  manners  were 
not  congenial  with  Bohemian  feeling  —  receiving  little  support, 
moreover,  from  the  Protestant  princes  or  from  England  —  suf- 
fered a  complete  defeat.  Lutheran  prejudices  and  the  fear  of 
countenancing  rebellion  and  the  revolutionary  spirit  deprived 
him  of  his  natural  allies.  The  result  was  that  Bohemia  was 
abandoned  to  fire  and  sword.  In  the  frightful  persecution  which 
had  for  its  object  the  eradication  of  Protestantism,  and  in  the 
protracted  wars  that  ensued  upon  it,  the  population  was  reduced 
from  about  four  millions  to  between  seven  and  eight  hundred 
thousand  !  It  was  only  when  the  Palatinate  was  conquered  and 
devastated ;  ^  when  the  electoral  rank  was  transferred  to  the 
Duke  of  Bavaria,  and  with  it  the  territories  of  Frederic,  except 
what  was  given  to  Spain ;  and  when  the  enterprise  of  banishing 
Protestantism  was  actively  undertaken  by  the  combined  agency 
of  the  troops  of  the  League  and  of  Jesuit  priests,  that  the  Prot- 
estant powers  took  up  the  .cause  of  the  fugitive  Elector.  In 
1625  England,  Holland,  and  Denmark  entered  into  an  alliance 

*  The  Heidelberg  Library  was  carried  off  to  Rome. 


360  THE   REFORMATION 

for  his  restoration.  Christian  IV.  of  Denmark  was  defeated,  and 
the  Danish  intervention  failed.  By  robbing  Frederic  of  the  elec- 
toral dignity  and  conferring  it  on  the  Bavarian  Duke,  a  majority 
in  the  electoral  body  was  acquired  by  the  Catholics.  But  the 
power  and  station  which  the  Duke  gained,  separated,  in  impor- 
tant particulars,  his  interests  from  those  of  Ferdinand.  It  was 
through  the  aid  of  Wallenstein  and  his  consummate  ability  in 
collecting  and  organizing,  as  well  as  leading  an  army,  that  Fer- 
dinand was  able  to  emancipate  himself  from  the  virtual  control 
of  Maximilian  and  the  League.^  Wallenstein  was  a  Bohemian 
noble,  proud,  able,  and  swayed  by  dreams  of  ambition ;  unscru- 
pulous in  respect  to  the  means  which  might  be  required  for  the 
fulfillment  of  his  daring  schemes.  He  had  rendered  valuable 
military  services  to  Ferdinand;  and,  on  the  suppression  of  the 
Bohemian  revolt,  had  acquired  vast  wealth  by  the  purchase  of 
confiscated  property.  He  offered  to  raise  an  army  and  to  sus- 
tain it.  He  made  it  support  itself  by  pillage.  It  was  a  period 
of  transition  in  the  method  of  prosecuting  war,  when  the  old 
system  of  feudal  militia  had  passed  away,  and  the  modern  sys- 
tem of  national  forces  or  standing  armies  had  not  arisen.  Armies 
were  made  up  of  hirelings  of  all  nations,  who  prosecuted  war  as 
a  trade  wherever  the  richest  booty  was  to  be  gained;  consider- 
ing indiscriminate  robbery  a  legitimate  incident  of  warfare.  The 
ineffable  miseries  of  the  protracted  struggle  in  Germany  were 
due,  to  a  considerable  extent,  to  this  composition  of  the  armies. 
Bands  of  organized  plunderers,  with  arms  in  their  hands,  were  let 
loose  upon  an  unprotected  population,  captured  cities  being  given 
up  to  the  unbridled  passions  of  a  fierce  and  lawless  soldiery. 
The  unarmed  people  dreaded  their  friends  hardly  less  than  their 
foes.  The  good  behavior  of  the  Swedes  was  a  marvel  to  the 
inhabitants  with  whom  they  came  in  contact;  and  even  the 
Swedes,  after  the  death  of  their  great  leader,  sunk  down  towards 
the  level  of  the  rest  of  the  combatants  in  this  frightful  conflict. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  Germany,  traversed  and  trampled  for  a 
whole  generation  by  these  hosts  of  marauders,  was  reduced 
almost  to  a  desert ;  that  it  endured  calamities  from  which  it  has 
never  entirely  recovered. 

Victory  attended  the  arms  of  Wallenstein  and  of  Tilly,  the 

>  Ranke,  Geschichte  WaUensteins  (3d  ed.,  1872).     This  biography,  as  might  be 
expected,  is  highly  instructive  on  the  whole  subject  of  the  thirty  years'  war. 


THE   EDICT   OF   RESTITUTION  361 

General  of  the  League.  Brunswick  and  Hanover,  Silesia,  Schles- 
wig  and  Holstein,  fell  into  their  power.  The  dukes  of  Mecklen- 
burg were  put  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  and  their  territory 
given,  as  a  reward,  to  Wallenstein  (1627).  He  was  anxious  to 
reduce  the  German  towns  on  the  Baltic.  But  Stralsund  offered 
a  stubborn  resistance  which  he  could  not  overcome,  although  he 
vowed  that  he  would  have  the  town  if  it  were  bound  to  the  sky- 
by  chains  of  adamant.  His  ambitious  schemes  were  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  schemes  of  the  League,  which  could  not  count 
upon  his  support.  Such  was  their  jealousy  and  animosity 
towards  the  commander  who  had  made  Ferdinand  free  from 
their  dictation  that  they  induced  him  to  remove  Wallenstein 
from  his  command.  Shortly  before  this,  however,  they  had 
moved  the  Emperor  to  the  adoption  of  a  measure  equally  dan- 
gerous to  his  cause,  and  one  that  put  far  distant  the  hopes  of 
peace.  This  was  the  famous  Edict  of  Restitution  (1629),  which 
declared  that  the  Protestant  States,  after  the  Treaty  of  Passau, 
had  no  right  to  appropriate  the  ecclesiastical  benefices  which 
were  under  their  lordship,  and  that  every  act  of  secularization 
of  this  nature  was  null;  that  all  archbishoprics  and  bishoprics 
which  had  become  Protestant  since  that  treaty  must  be  surren- 
dered; that  the  Declaration  of  Ferdinand  I.,  giving  liberty  to 
the  Protestant  subjects  of  ecclesiastical  princes,  was  invalid,  and 
that  such  subjects  might  be  forced  to  become  Catholics,  or  ex- 
pelled from  their  homes.  That  is,  the  parts  of  the  Religious 
Peace  that  were  odious  to  the  Protestants  were  to  be  enforced, 
according  to  the  strictest  construction,  while  the  parts  obnoxious 
to  the  Catholics  were  to  be  abrogated.  Moreover,  the  Edict 
ordained  that  the  Religious  Peace  should  not  avail  for  the  pro- 
tection of  Calvinists,  Zwinglians,  or  any  other  dissenters  save 
the  adherents  of  the  Augsburg  Confession.  The  changes  that 
had  taken  place  since  the  Passau  Treaty  were  of  such  a  character 
that  the  execution  of  the  Edict  would  have  brought  a  sweeping 
and  violent  revolution  in  the  Protestant  communities.  It  was 
evident  that  nothing  less  was  aimed  at  than  the  entire  extinction 
of  Protestantism.  The  most  lukewarm  of  the  Princes,  including 
the  Electors  of  Brandenburg  and  Saxony,  were  roused  by  this 
measure  to  a  sense  of  the  common  danger.  Thus  the  Edict  of 
Restitution  and  the  removal  of  Wallenstein  from  his  command, 
the  two  measures  dictated  by  the  League,  aided  the  Protestant 


362  THE   REFORMATION 

cause ;  the  first  by  awakening  and  combining  its  supporters,  and 
the  second  by  weakening  the  mihtary  strength  of  their  adversa- 
ries. Wallenstein  was  a  sacrifice  to  the  League  and  to  the  ambi- 
tion of  Maximihan. 

In  the  second  act  of  this  long  drama,  Gustavus  Adolphus,  of 
Sweden,  is  the  hero.  It  had  been  his  aim  in  a  conflict  of  eighteen 
years,  with  Denmark,  Poland,  and  Russia,  to  control  the  Baltic 
Sea.  Not  only  was  this  political  aim  imperiled  by  the  imperial 
conquests,  but  they  involved  the  danger  of  a  Catholic  reaction 
in  Sweden  itself.  Besides  this  motive,  the  Swedish  King  was 
impelled  to  intervene  by  a  genuine  attachment  to  Protestantism, 
such  as  had  inspired  German  princes,  like  Frederic  of  Saxony, 
and  Philip  of  Hesse,  in  the  first  age  of  the  Reformation.  He 
was  not  a  crusader,  who  sought  to  exterminate  the  opposing 
faith.  Rather  did  he  wish  both  religious  parties  to  respect  each 
other's  rights  and  dwell  in  amity.  His  interposition,  full  of 
peril  to  himself,  was  regarded  by  Brandenburg  and  Saxony 
with  jealousy  and  repugnance.  It  was  not  until  the  barbarous 
sack  and  burning  of  Magdeburg  by  the  savage  troops  of  Tilly 
(1631),  that  the  neutral  party  was  forced  to  side  with  Sweden. 
The  victory  of  Gustavus  over  Tilly,  and  the  triumphant  advance 
of  the  Swedes  into  the  South  of  Germany,  prostrated  the  power 
of  the  League.  We  find  that  Gustavus  was  regarded  with  sus- 
picion by  the  princes  but  with  cordiality  by  the  German  cities. 
Whether  his  plan  of  peace,  which  embraced  the  repeal  of  the 
Edict  of  Restitution,  the  toleration  everywhere  of  both  religions, 
the  restoration  of  the  Elector  Palatine  to  his  territories  and  to 
the  electoral  dignity,  and  the  banishment  of  the  Jesuits,  contem- 
plated his  own  elevation  to  the  rank  of  King  of  Rome,  must 
remain  uncertain.  No  alternative  was  left  to  Ferdinand  but 
to  call  back  Wallenstein  from  his  estates,  and  give  him  absolute 
powers  in  the  conduct  of  the  war,  —  powers  which  made  him 
independent  of  all  control,  and  exempt  from  liability  to  another 
removal.  The  battle  of  Lutzen,  in  1632,  was  a  great  defeat  of 
Wallenstein,  and  a  glorious  victory  for  the  Swedes;  but  it  cost 
them  the  life  of  their  King. 

In  the  new  phase  which  the  war  assumed  after  the  fall  of 
Gustavus,  the  influence  of  Richelieu  becomes  more  and  more 
predominant.  The  policy  of  the  Cardinal  was  to  attain  the  end, 
which  French  politics  had  so  long  pursued,  of  breaking  down 


SWEDEN   AND   FRANCE   INTERFERE  363 

the  power  of  Hapsburg,  and,  at  the  same  time,  of  profiting  by 
the  intestine  conflict  in  Germany,  by  extending  the  French  fron- 
tier on  the  east. 

The  ground  on  which  RicheUeu  vindicated  himself  for  lend- 
ing aid  to  Protestants  was  that  the  war  was  not  a  rehgious  but 
a  poUtical   one.      It  was   the   old   contest   of   France  against 
the  ambitious  effort  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg,  to  destroy  the 
independence  of  other  nations,  and  build  up  a  universal  mon- 
archy.    This  imputation  was  indignantly  denied;   nor  is  there 
reason  to  think  that  such  a  design  was  seriously  entertained  by 
the  Emperor  and  his  partisans.     Yet  a  complete  success  in  their 
mixed  pohtical  and  rehgious  enterprise  would  have  given  them 
a  dangerous  preponderance.     In  the  warfare  of  Philip  11.  against 
Protestantism,  the  supremacy  of  Spain  and  the  triumph  of  the 
CathoUc  cause  were  linked  together  in  his  mind.    RicheHeu,  in 
turn,  was  charged  with  cherishing  an  equal  ambition  in  behalf 
of  France.     The  accusation  had  so  much  of  truth  that  he,  doubt- 
less, aimed  to  raise  his' country  to  the  leading  place  among  the 
European  nations.     Holland  helped  the  anti-Austrian  league  by 
carrying  on  its  own  contest  against  the  troops  of  Spain,  but  was 
deterred  from  entering  further  into  the  war  by  apprehensions 
in  reference  to  France,  and  the  consequences  that  would  follow 
the  augmentation  of  French  power.     Richelieu  had  refrained 
from  engaging  in  the  German  war,  until  the  quelling  of  the 
Huguenots  and  the  capture  of  Rochelle  left  his  hands  free.     In 
return  for  the  subsidies  which  he  furnished  Gustavus,  he  had  been 
able  to  gain  from  the  wary  monarch  no  share  in  the  control  of 
the  war,  but  only  the  pledge  that  no  attack  should  be  made  upon 
the  Catholic  rehgion  as  such.     Oxenstiern,  the  Swedish  Chan- 
cellor, on  whom  the  principal  conduct  of  affairs  now  devolved, 
was  careful  to  retain  for  the  Swedes  the  supreme  direction  of 
the  war,  which  was  done  in  the  Heilbronn  Treaty  of  1633,  when 
France  entered  into  an  alliance  with  Sweden  and  the  Protestant 
States.     Wallenstein  became  more  and  more  an  object  of  dread 
to  his  imperial  master,  as  well  as  to  the  League.     The  com- 
mander, whom  it  was  now  impossible  either  to  remove  or  to 
control,  was  plotting  to  arrange  for  a  peace,  in  which  he  should 
settle  with  France  and  Sweden,  satisfy  the  Protestants,  and  prob- 
ably reserve  Bohemia,  as  a  reward  for  himself.     He  had  sounded 
his  officers,  and  confided  in  their  fidelity  to  their  leader.    The 


364  THE   REFORMATION 

murder  of  Wallenstein  (1634)  was  the  means  chosen  to  pmiish 
his  treason,  and  avert  the  threatened  danger. 

The  imperial  victory  in  the  battle  of  Nordlingen,  in  1634, 
had  the  effect  to  give  to  Richelieu  the  predominance  which  he 
had  long  aspired  after.  The  SwecUsh  force  was  broken.  The 
aid  of  France  had  now  become  a  necessity.  France  and  Sweden 
were  thenceforward  to  have  an  equal  part  in  the  management  of 
the  war.  Brandenburg  and  Saxony,  to  whom  the  connection 
with  Sweden  had  always  been  repugnant,  made  for  themselves 
a  separate  treaty  with  the  Emperor,  by  which  the  Edict  of  Res- 
titution, as  far  as  they  were  concerned,  was  abrogated.  The 
treaty  between  Saxony  and  the  Emperor  was  concluded  at 
Prague  in  1635.  That  the  Elector  should  enter  into  this  dis- 
graceful arrangement  was  owing,  in  part,  to  his  jealousy  of 
Sweden,  and,  in  part,  to  the  bigoted  hostihty  to  Calvinism,  that 
prevailed  in  his  court.  Richelieu's  desire  to  build  up  a  French 
party  among  the  Germans  seemed  to  be  accomplished,  when  Ber- 
nard, of  Weimar,  their  foremost  general,  was  taken  into  the  pay 
of  France.  Yet  Bernard  could  not  be  reUed  on  to  consent  to  a 
permanent  cession  of  territory  to  that  country:  in  his  testa- 
ment, he  expressly  declared  against  it.  The  death  of  Bernard 
in  1639  placed  the  Cardinal  at  the  goal  of  all  his  efforts ;  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  war  was  left  in  the  hands  of  the  French,  and 
the  armies  came  under  the  lead  of  French  officers.  The  char- 
acter of  the  war  had  entirely  changed.  Protestant  states  were 
fighting  on  the  imperial  side,  and  paying  a  heavy  price  for  their 
desertion  of  their  former  allies.  Eight  more  years  of  war  were 
required  to  bring  the  Court  of  Vienna  to  consent  to  a  full  am- 
nesty and  to  the  restoration  of  the  religious  peace,  involving  the 
surrender  of  the  Edict  of  Restitution;  measures  which  were 
indispensable  to  the  termination  of  the  weary  conflict.  An 
acquiescence  in  these  necessary  terms  of  peace  was  at  last  wrung 
from  the  Emperor  by  his  military  reverses. 

The  cruelties  inflicted  during  this  war,  especially  during  the 
last  years  of  it,  upon  the  defenseless  people,  are  indescribable. 
The  population  of  Germany  is  said  to  have  diminished  in  thirty 
years  from  twenty  to  fifty  per  cent.  The  population  of  Augs- 
burg was  reduced  from  eighty  thousand  to  eighteen  thousand. 
Of  the  four  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  of  Wiirtemberg  as 
late  as  1641,  only  forty-eight  thousand  were  left.     Cities,  vil- 


THE   PEACE   OF   WESTPHALIA  365 

lages,  castles,  and  houses  innumerable  had  been  burned  to  the 
ground.  The  bare  statistics  of  the  destruction  of  life  and  prop- 
erty are  appaUing, 

The  Peace  of  WestphaUa,  in  1648,  confirmed  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Reservation  —  fixing,  however,  1624  as  the  normal  year, 
to  decide  which  faith  should  possess  ecclesiastical  properties.  It 
modified  the  jus  reformandi,  according  to  which  the  religion  of 
each  state  was  to  be  determined  by  that  of  the  prince;  and  in 
this  matter,  also,  1624  was  made  the  normal  year.  That  is  to 
say,  whatever  might  be  the  faith  of  the  prince,  the  rehgion  of 
each  state  was  to  be  Catholic  or  Protestant,  according  to  its 
position  at  that  date.  As  to  their  share  in  the  imperial  admin- 
istration, the  two  religions  were  placed  on  a  footing  of  substan- 
tial equaUty.  Religious  freedom  and  civil  equahty  were  also 
extended  to  the  Calvinists;  only  these  three  forms  of  religion 
were  to  be  tolerated  in  the  Empire.  But  the  Empire  was  re- 
duced to  a  shadow  by  the  gi\ang  of  the  power  to  decide,  instead 
of  advising,  in  all  matters  of  peace,  war,  taxation,  and  the  like, 
to  the  Diet,  and  by  the  allowance  granted  to  members  of  the 
Diet  to  contract  alliances  with  one  another  and  with  foreign 
powers,  provided  no  prejudice  should  come  thereby  to  the 
Empire  or  the  Emperor.  The  independence  of  Holland  and  of 
Switzerland  was  formally  acknowledged.  Sweden  obtained  the 
territory  about  the  Baltic,  which  Gustavus  had  wanted,  in  addi- 
tion to  other  important  places  about  the  North  Sea,  and  the 
mouths  of  the  Oder,  the  Weser,  and  the  Elbe;  in  consequence 
of  which  cession  Sweden  became  a  member  of  the  German  Diet. 
Among  the  acquisitions  of  France  were  the  three  bishoprics, 
Metz,  Toul,  and  Verdun,  and  the  landgraviate  of  Upper  and 
Lower  Alsace;  France  thus  gaining  access  to  the  Rhine.  Both 
Sweden  and  France,  by  becoming  guarantees  of  the  peace,  ob- 
tained the  right  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Germany. 
So  great  was  the  penalty  paid  for  civil  discord, 

England,  during  the  reign  of  the  Stuart  kings,  descended 
from  the  lofty  position  which  it  had  held  among  the  European 
states,  as  a  bulwark  of  Protestantism.  James  I.  (1603-1625) 
brought  to  the  throne  the  highest  notions  of  kingly  authority, 
and  in  connection  with  them,  a  cordial  hatred  of  Presbyterian- 
ism,  which  his  experiences  in  Scotland  led  him  to  regard  as  a 


366  THE   REFORMATION 

natural  ally  of  popular  government.  He  expressed  his  convic- 
tion in  the  maxim,  "No  bishop,  no  king."  The  contrast  between 
obsequious  prelates  on  their  knees  before  him,  and  the  ministers 
of  the  Kirk  who  pulled  his  sleeve  as  they  administered  their 
blunt  rebukes,  deUghted  his  soul.  He  found  himself  not  only 
delivered  from  his  tormentors,  but  an  object  of  adulation.  He 
had  once  said  of  the  "neighbor  Kirk  in  England"  that  "it  is  an 
evil-said  mass  in  English;"^  but  he  was  cured  of  this  aversion 
if  it  was  ever  seriously  entertained.  During  the  reign  of  James, 
the  gulf  between  the  Anglican  Church  and  the  Puritans  was 
widened,  chiefly  in  consequence  of  two  changes  which  took  place 
in  the  former.  The  episcopal  poHty  which  had  been  regarded, 
in  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  as  one  among  various  admissible  forms 
of  Church  government,  came  to  be  more  and  more  considered  a 
divine  ordinance,  and  indispensable  to  the  constitution  of  a 
Church;  so  that,  as  Macaulay  expresses  it,  a  Church  might  as 
well  be  without  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  or  the  Incarnation, 
as  without  bishops.  The  other  change  was  the  spread  in  the 
Anglican  body,  of  the  Arminian  theology,  which  introduced  a 
doctrinal  difference  that  had  not  existed  before  between  the 
estabhshed  Church  and  the  Puritans.^  As  the  common  enemy, 
which  Anglican  and  Puritan  combined  to  oppose,  became  less 
formidable,  since  the  great  majority  of  the  nation  were  now 
hostile  to  the  CathoUc  Church,  the  two  Protestant  parties  were 
less  restrained  from  mutual  contention,  and  were  led  by  the  very 
influence  of  their  conflict  with  one  another  to  sharpen  their  char- 
acteristic points  of  difference. 

James  lost  no  time  in  evincing  his  hostility  to  the  Puritans. 
On  his  way  to  London,  the  Millenary  petition,  signed  by  nearly 
a  thousand  ministers,  who  asked  for  the  abolishment  of  usages 
most  obnoxious  to  the  Puritans,  was  not  only  received  with  no 
favor,  but  ten  of  those  who  had  presented  the  petition  were 

>  Calderwood,  v.  105,  106;  Burton,  vi.  221. 

2  James  sent  delegates  to  the  Synod  of  Dort,  who  made  to  him  full  reports  of 
its  proceedings.  Some  of  them  he  rewarded  with  promotion  in  the  Church.  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  writing  of  the  interval  between  1639  and  1641,  in  the  next  reign, 
says  of  the  doctrine  of  predestination:  "At  that  time  this  great  doctrine  grew 
much  out  of  fashion  with  the  prelates,  but  was  generally  embraced  by  all  reli- 
gious and  holy  persons  in  the  land."  Life  of  Col.  Hutchinson,  p.  66  (Bohn's  ed.). 
The  admirable  picture  of  Puritan  character  presented  in  this  memoir  is  marred 
only  by  the  writer's  strong  prejudice  against  Cromwell.  The  literature  on  the 
history  of  Arminianism  in  the  English  Church  is  given  by  Cunningham.  The 
Reformers  and  the  Theology  of  the  Reformation,  p.  168  scq. 


ENGLAND   UNDER   JAMES   I.  367 

actually  imprisoned  by  the  Star  Chamber,  on  the  ground  that 
their  act  tended  to  sedition  and  treason.  The  petitioners  were 
not  Separatists;  they  made  no  objection  to  episcopacy.  They 
complained  of  non-residence,  pluralities,  and  hke  abuses,  and  of 
the  cross  in  baptism,  the  cap  and  surplice,  and  a  few  other 
ceremonial  peculiarities.*  The  opportunity  was  presented  for  a 
scheme  of  Comprehension,  which,  had  it  been  adopted,  would 
have  had  the  most  important  consequences;  but  that  opportu- 
nity was  not  embraced.  In  the  Hampton  Court  Conference, 
where  a  few  Puritan  divines  met  the  bishops,  the  King  treated 
the  former  with  unfairness  and  insolence.  He  plumed  himself 
on  the  theological  learning  and  acumen  which  he  fancied  him- 
self to  possess,  and  which  formed  one  of  his  titles  to  the  distinc- 
tion, which  his  flatterers  gave  him,  of  being  the  Solomon  of  his 
age.  The  praises  lavished  on  him  by  the  bishops  —  one  of 
whom  declared  that  he  undoubtedly  spoke  by  the  direct  inspira- 
tion of  the  Holy  Ghost  —  in  connection  with  their  extravagant 
theory  of  royal  authority,  and  of  the  submission  owed  by  the  sub- 
ject, filled  him  with  delight.  This  Conference  had  one  valuable 
result.  Dr.  Reynolds,  one  of  the  Puritan  representatives,  and 
perhaps  the  most  learned  man  in  the  kingdom,  recommended 
that  a  new  or  revised  version  of  the  Scriptures  should  be  pre- 
pared; and  this  suggestion  James,  who  complained  of  certain 
marginal  observations  in  "the  Geneva  Bible,"  which  were  un- 
favorable to  the  sacredness  of  royalty,  caught  up  and  caused  to 
be  carried  out.^  The  desire  of  the  clergy  to  enhance  their  own 
authority  by  exalting  that  of  the  crown  appears  in  the  ambi- 
tious schemes  of  Bancroft,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  which 
encountered  the  resistance  of  Coke,  the  great  champion  of  the 
common  law.  As  long  as  Cecil  was  in  power,  the  foreign  politics 
of  James  were  not  destitute  of  spirit;  but  the  timidity  of  the 
King,  joined  with  his  desire  to  marry  his  son  to  a  Spanish  prin- 
cess, prevented  him  from  efficiently  supporting  his  son-in-law, 
the  Elector  Palatine,  at  the  outbreaking  of  the  thirty  years' 

»  Hallam,  ch.  vi.  (p.  173). 

2  The  Hampton  Court  Conference  is  interesting  and  important,  as  presenting 
the  characteristics  of  the  two  ecclesiastical  parties  and  of  the  sovereign.  Most 
of  the  accounts  of  it  are  derived  from  Dr.  Barlow's  report,  who  was  on  the  anti- 
Puritan  side.  See  Fuller,  Church  History,  v.  266 ;  Neal,  p.  ii.,  ch.  i. ;  Cardwell, 
History  of  Conferences,  p.  121  ;  Burton,  History  of  Scotland,  vi.  218  seq.  Hallam 
(Const.  Hist.,  ch.  vi.)  has  candid  and  just  remarks  on  the  behavior  of  the  king  and 
of  the  bishops. 


368  THE   REFORMATION 

war,  and  moved  him  basely  to  sacrifice  Raleigh  to  the  vengeance 
of  Spain.  His  want  of  common  sense  was  manifested  in  his 
attempt  to  impose  episcopacy  upon  the  Scottish  Church.  His 
arbitrary  principles  of  government,  which  he  had  not  prudence 
enough  to  prevent  him  from  constantly  proclaiming,  prepared 
the  way  for  the  great  civil  contest  that  broke  out  in  the  next 
reign. 

Charles  I.  (1625-1649)  made  the  deUberate  attempt  to  gov- 
ern England  without  a  ParUament.  There  is  no  doubt  that  it 
was  his  design  to  convert  the  Umited  monarchy  into  an  absolute 
one.  Although  a  sincere  Protestant,  he  sympathized  fully  with 
what  may  be  termed  the  Romanizing  party  in  the  English  Church 
or  the  party  which  stood  at  the  farthest  remove  from  Puritan- 
ism, and  nearest  to  the  religious  system  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Charles's  treatment  of  the  Papists  was  vacillating.  Now  the 
laws  would  be  executed  against  them,  and  now  the  execution  of 
them  would  be  illegally  suspended  by  the  King's  decree.  But 
the  occasional  severities  of  the  government  towards  them  could 
not  efface  the  impression  which  had  been  made  by  the  sending 
of  an  English  fleet  to  aid  in  the  blockade  of  Rochelle  (1625), 
which  the  French  King  was  seeking  to  wrest  from  the  Hugue- 
nots. Laud,  an  honest  but  narrow-minded  and  superstitious 
man,  became  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  1633,  To  advance, 
in  respect  to  doctrine  and  ceremonies,  as  near  as  possible  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  system,  without  accepting  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Pope,  was  his  manifest  inclination.  He  records  his  dreams 
in  his  diary.  On  one  occasion  he  dreamed  that  he  was  recon- 
verted to  the  Church  of  Rome.^  It  was  an  unpleasant  dream 
since  it  related  to  a  danger  that,  as  he  doubtless  felt,  attended 
his  measures,  but  which  he  meant  to  escape.  His  impracticable 
character  and  lack  of  tact  even  James  I.  accurately  discerned. 
"The  plain  truth  is  that  I  keep  Laud  back  from  all  place  of  rule 
and  authority,  because  I  find  that  he  hath  a  restless  spirit,  and 
cannot  see  when  matters  are  well,  but  loves  to  toss  and  change, 
and  to  bring  things  to  a  pitch  of  reformation,  floating  in  his  own 
brain,  which  may  endanger  the  steadfastness  of  that  which  is  in 
a  good  pass."  Of  Laud's  plans  respecting  the  Scots,  James 
added:    "He  knows  not  the  stomach  of  that  people,"^    By 

'  Burton,  Hist,  of  Scotland,  vi.  390. 

^  The  authority  for  this  statement  of  James  is  Bishop  John  Hacket.  Burton, 
vi,  338. 


THE   WESTMINSTER   ASSEMBLY  369 

means  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission,  a  species  of  Protestant 
Inquisition,  he  engaged  with  a  vigilant  and  merciless  zeal  in  the 
persecution  of  Puritans.  They  were  even  prosecuted  for  not 
complying  with  new  ceremonies  which  Laud  himself  had  intro- 
duced, and  for  preaching  Calvinism;  and  they  were  punished 
for  declining  to  read  in  the  churches,  the  "Book  of  Sports," 
which  recommended  games  and  pastimes,  of  which  they  did  not 
approve.  The  Star  Chamber,  and  the  High  Commission,  are 
emblems,  as  they  were  effective  instruments,  of  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal and  civil  tyranny  to  which  the  English  people  were  subjected. 
The  endeavor  to  force  the  English  Prayer-book  upon  Scotland 
called  out,  in  1638,  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  of  the  Scots 
for  the  defense  of  Presbyterianism.  In  1642  hostilities  began 
between  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  King,  the  immediate  occa- 
sion being  the  abortive  attempt  of  Charles,  in  violation  of  his 
pledges,  to  arrest  Pym  and  his  associates,  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  same  year  Parliament  convoked  the  Westminster 
Assembly  to  advise  them  in  the  matter  of  reconstructing  the 
Church  of  England.  At  the  outset,  a  majority  of  its  members 
were  not  only  conforming  ministers,  but  would  have  been  con- 
tent with  a  moderate  episcopacy.  It  has  been  said  with  truth 
that  moderate  Episcopalians  of  the  school  of  Usher,  and  mod- 
erate Presbyterians  of  the  stamp  of  Baxter,  had  little  difficulty 
in  finding  a  common  ground  on  which  they  could  unite.  A 
second  party  which,  if  not  numerous  in  the  Assembly,  was  grow- 
ing in  the  nation,  was  that  of  the  Independents  who  held  to  the 
self-governing  power  of  the  local  congregation  or  church,  into 
the  communion  of  which  they  would  receive  none  who  did  not 
give  proof  of  being  spiritual  or  regenerated  persons.  Reject- 
ing the  government  of  prelates  and  of  synods,  they  favored 
voluntary  associations  for  counsel  and  for  the  prosecution,  in 
concert,  of  Christian  work.  The  Independents  were  denied  the 
liberty  which  they  strove  to  obtain  at  the  hands  of  the  Presby- 
terians; and  the  rejection  by  them  of  a  scheme  of  comprehen- 
sion, which  would  have  united  both  sections  of  the  Puritan  party, 
has  been  deplored,  even  by  Neal  and  Baxter,  advocates  of  the 
Presbyterian  system.  The  Erastians,  among  whom  in  the  As- 
sembly were  Lightfoot  and  Selden,  of  all  the  members  the  most 
eminent  for  their  learning,  were  in  favor  of  giving  the  regulation 
of  all  ecclesiastical  affairs  to  the  state.     The  influence  of  the 


370  THE   REFORMATION 

Scots,  and  the  necessity  of  a  union  with  them,  in  order  success- 
fully to  withstand  Charles,  were  powerful  considerations  with 
the  whole  Puritan  body.  Parliament  adopted  the  Scottish 
Covenant,  and  the  Assembly  the  Presbyterian  polity.  But 
Parliament  steadily  refused  to  concede  to  this  system  a  divine 
right,  or  to  yield  up  its  own  supremacy,  as  a  court  of  ultimate 
appeal.  The  Calvinistic  theory  of  the  Church,  as  a  distinct 
power,  having  the  complete  right  to  excommunicate  its  mem- 
bers, or  to  interdict  communion,  was  not  allowed.  It  was  a 
point  which  the  Scottish  influence  was  not  strong  enough  to 
carry.  The  Confession  and  Catechism,  prepared  by  the  Assem- 
bly, were  made  the  Creed  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  their 
"Directory"  was  put  forth  by  authority  of  Parliament,  for  the 
regulation  of  worship,  in  the  room  of  the  Prayer-book.  Between 
one  and  two  thousand  ministers  who  refused  the  new  subscrip- 
tions, were  deprived  of  their  places.^  The  Presbyterian  system, 
similar  to  that  in  Scotland,  with  the  exception  that  appeals 
might  be  taken  from  the  highest  ecclesiastical  tribunals  to  Par- 
liament, was  now  legally  established  in  England.  But  shortly 
after  the  new  regulations  were  passed,  the  Independents,  of 
whom  Cromwell  was  the  chief,  attained  to  supreme  power  in  the 
state.  The  consequence  was,  that  Presbyterianism  was  never 
fully  established  in  more  than  two  counties,  Middlesex  and  Lan- 
cashire. Cromwell  set  up  a  Board  of  "Triers"  for  the  exami- 
nation and  approval  of  candidates  for  benefices,  and  without 
the  certificate  of  this  Board,  composed  mostly  of  Independent 
divines,  no  person  could  take  an  ecclesiastical  office.  Their  cer- 
tificate was  a  substitute  for  institution  and  induction.  But  the 
Puritans,  when  they  found  themselves  in  possession  of  power, 
interdicted  the  use  of  the  Prayer-book  in  private  houses  as  well 
as  in  churches,  and  imitated,  but  too  successfully,  the  persecut- 
ing spirit  of  their  opponents.  Cromwell  himself,  in  comparison 
with  the  Puritan  leaders  generally,  was  of  a  liberal  and  tolerant 
spirit.  The  Independents  were,  generally  speaking,  favorable 
to  religious  toleration.  Yet,  it  was  only  a  few,  at  first,  who 
fully  adopted  the  principle  that  the  magistrate  should  use  no 
coercion  whatever  in  matters  of  religious  belief,  or  the  principle 
that  the  State  should  leave  entirely  to  the  congregations  the 

*  As  to  the  number  and  character  of  the  ejected  ministers,  see  Vaughan,  Eng- 
lish Nonconformity,  p.  127. 


THE   INDEPENDENTS  371 

pecuniary  support  of  the  ministry.  The  doctrine  of  rehgious  hb- 
erty  found,  at  that  day,  some  warm  advocates,  such  as  Vane, 
and  John  Milton,  the  ornament  of  the  Independent  party. 

The  settlement  of  New  England  was  a  result  of  the  religious 
conflicts  among  the  Protestants  of  England.  In  the  reign  of 
James  I.  a  congregation  of  Independents  escaped  from  persecu- 
tion in  England,  under  circumstances  of  great  difficulty  and 
hardship,  and  found  an  asylum  in  Holland.  A  portion  of  this 
church  of  emigrants,  at  Leyden,  having  received  the  benedic- 
tion of  their  pastor,  John  Robinson,  crossed  the  Atlantic  in  the 
Mayflower,  and  in  December,  1620,  began  the  settlement  of 
Plymouth.  Afterwards,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  bands  of 
Nonconformists  from  England,  organized  the  colony  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  Plymouth  settlers  were  Separatists;  the  Massa- 
chusetts settlers  were  not.  But  as  Robinson  had  predicted, 
"unconformable  Christians"  of  both  classes  found  no  difficulty 
in  agreeing  in  Church  principles,  as  soon  as  they  found  them- 
selves out  of  the  kingdom  of  England,  and  at  full  liberty  to  regu- 
late their  ecclesiastical  affairs  for  themselves.  They  adopted  in 
common  the  Congregational  system  of  Church  government.  The 
settlers  of  Massachusetts  organized  a  State  as  well  as  a  Church. 
They  founded  a  religious  commonwealth ;  a  community  in  which 
all  political  power  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  members  of  the 
Church;  a  theocratic  State.  They  have  been  censured  for  the 
practice  of  intolerance  towards  opponents  of  their  creed,  and  of 
their  ecclesiastical  and  political  order.  On  this  point,  a  distinc- 
tion is  to  be  made  between  the  settlers  of  Massachusetts  and  those 
of  Plymouth.  Among  the  latter,  religious  liberty  was  cherished. 
It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Massachusetts  colony  was 
not  a  full-blown  commonwealth,  but  a  society  organized  under 
a  charter;  at  most,  an  incipient  State.  What  may  be  safe  and 
tolerable  in  a  mature,  fully  established  political  community, 
may  be  unsafe  and  destructive  in  an  infant  society  of  this  char- 
acter; especially  in  an  age  of  religious  ferment  and  violent 
agitation.  Yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  founders  of 
Massachusetts  and  of  the  other  New  England  colonies,  except 
Rhode  Island,  which  were  soon  after  formed,  were  advocates  of 
"liberty  of  conscience."  They  generally  beheved  that  it  be- 
longs to  the  civil  magistrate  to  protect  orthodoxy.  They  had 
not  advanced  to  the  more  liberal  doctrine  as  to  the  rights  of  the 


372  THE   REFORMATION 

individual,  to  the  more  restricted  notion  of  the  province  of  the 
State,  which  Independents  of  the  school  of  Milton  and  Vane 
expressed,  and  which  formed  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Roger 
Williams/ 

Under  the  Protector,  England  once  more  took  the  high  and 
commanding  place  in  Europe,  which  she  had  lost  since  the 
death  of  Elizabeth.  Heavy  blows  were  struck  at  the  Spanish 
monarchy.  Protestants,  wherever  they  were  oppressed,  found 
in  the  Enghsh  Ruler  a  defender  whose  arm  was  long  enough  io 
smite  their  assailants. 

The  Enghsh  people,  after  the  death  of  Cromwell  (1658), 
were  more  and  more  impatient  of  the  rule  of  the  army,  and 
yearned  for  their  old  institutions  of  government.  Hence  they 
gave  a  cordial  welcome  to  Charles  II.  (1660).  The  fatal  mis- 
take was  made  of  requiring  from  him  no  formal  guaranties  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  restoration  was  effected  by  a 
combined  effort  of  the  Presbyterians  and  the  Episcopalians.^ 
The  Presbyterians  had  stood  aloof  from  the  extreme  measures 
of  the  reigning  party  under  the  Commonwealth :  the  Presby- 
terian members  had  been  expelled  from  Parhament  before  the 
trial  of  the  King.  This  party  had  warm  hopes,  not  only  from 
the  agency  which  they  had  exerted  in  bringing  back  the  King, 
but  also  from  his  promises.  In  the  Declaration  from  Breda, 
prior  to  his  return,  Charles  had  declared  that  no  man  should 
"be  disquieted  or  called  in  question  for  differences  of  opinion 
in  religion  which  do  not  disturb  the  peace  of  the  kingdom." 
He  had  promised  "a  liberty  to  tender  consciences"  and  "an 
indulgence"  to  be  secured  by  Act  of  Parhament.  The  Worces- 
ter House  Declaration  of  the  King,  shortly  after  the  Restora- 
tion, more  than  confirmed  these  pledges;  but  they  were  all  to 
be  falsified.  The  Presbyterians  found  themselves  deceived. 
Charles  was  himself  a  good-natured  sensuaUst,  secretly  fond  of 

'  Among  the  multitude  of  books  on  the  principles  of  the  founders  of  New 
England,  we  may  refer  to  Palfrey's  learned  and  able  History  of  New  England, 
vol.  i. ;  to  Dr.  H.  M.  Dexter,  The  Congregationalism  of  the  last  300  years  (1880) ; 
to  Dr.  G.  E.  Ellis's  The  Puritan  Age  and  Rule  in  .  .  .  Massachusetts  (1888) ;  and  to 
Dr.  G.  L.  Walker's  Some  Aspects  of  the  Religious  Life  of  New  England  (1897); 
to  Historical  Discourses,  by  Leonard   Bacon  (1839). 

^  Forster,  Life  of  Cromwell,  in  the  Statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth,  vols.  iii. 
and  iv. ;  T.  Carlyle,  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Oliver  Cromwell  (3d  ed.,  1857).  Besides 
the  English  historians,  Hume,  Clarendon,  Godwin,  Macaulay,  and  the  others, 
we  have,  on  this  period,  the  works  of  Guizot,  History  of  the  English  Revolution, 
and  Hist,  of  Cromwell,  the  Commonwealth,  and  the  Restoration  (1854-1857). 


THE   RESTORED   STUART   MONARCHY  373 

the  Romish  Church,  to  which  he  conformed  on  his  death-bed. 
But  had  he  been  disposed  to  be  indulgent  to  Puritanism,  the 
wave  of  the  Anglican  Reaction,  which  rose  higher  day  by  day; 
the  Reaction  in  which  a  tender  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the 
family  of  the  King  was  mingled  with  resentment  against  the 
party  by  whose  instrumentality  his  father  had  been  brought  to 
the  block,  and  with  love  to  the  Church,  which  had  fallen  with 
the  throne,  might  have  hindered  him  from  carrying  out  his 
inclination.  The  anti-Puritan  measures  had  the  potent  support 
of  Clarendon.  The  Savoy  Conference,  in  May,  1661,  between 
twenty-one  Anglican,  and  as  many  Presbyterian  divines,  after 
acrimonious  debates,  in  which  the  Churchmen  showed  no  dis- 
position to  come  to  an  accommodation  with  their  opponents, 
which  would  have  retained  in  the  Church  a  vast  number  of  able 
and  useful  ministers,  broke  up  without  any  result.  Thus 
another  great  opportunity  for  Comprehension,  for  converting 
the  Anglican  establishment  into  a  Broad  Church,  in  which, 
with  uniformity  in  essentials,  there  should  be  room  for  diversity 
in  things  of  less  moment,  was  thrown  away.  The  Episcopal 
system  was  reinstated  by  Parhament.  It  was  required  that 
all  ministers  who  had  not  been  ordained  by  bishops  should 
receive  episcopal  ordination;  that  all  ministers  should  make  a 
declaration  of  unfeigned  assent  and  consent  to  the  Prayer-book 
and  to  the  whole  system  of  the  Church  of  England,  should  take 
the  oath  of  canonical  obedience,  abjure  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant,  and,  moreover,  solemnly  abjure  the  doctrine  of  the 
lawfulness  of  taking  up  arms  against  the  King  or  any  commis- 
sioned by  him,  on  any  pretense  whatsoever.  Two  thousand 
ministers  —  many  of  whom  were  among  the  best  in  the  king- 
dom, men  like  Richard  Baxter  —  who  refused  to  comply  with 
the  terms  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  were  in  one  day,  in  1662, 
ejected  from  their  livings.^    This  hard  measure  may,  to  be  sure, 

*  Documents  relating  to  the  Settlement  of  the  Church  of  England  by  the  Act  of 
Uniformity,  1662.  (London,  1862.)  This  is  a  valuable  compilation.  See,  also, 
Gee  and  Hardy,  Documents  Illustrative  of  English  Church  History  (1896),  p.  585 
seq.  An  excellent  monograph  on  the  Restoration  in  its  ecclesiastical  aspects,  is 
the  work  of  Stoughton,  Church  and  State  Two  Hundred  Years  Ago:  From  1660  to 
1663  (1862).  The  Life  and  Times  of  Richard  Baxter  is  a  most  instructive  and 
entertaining  contemporaneous  authority.  Baxter  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
events  of  the  period.  If  his  scholarship  was  not  accurate,  his  reading  was  vast. 
His  mind  was  acute  and  fertile,  and  his  piety  was  honored  by  his  adversaries. 
But  in  public  affairs,  he  was  singularly  destitute  of  tact,  and  he  had  a  most 
exaggerated  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  disputations  and  of  "a  few  necessary  distinc- 
tions, "  where  hostile  parties  were  to  be  reconciled. 


374  THE   REFORMATION 

be  looked  upon  as  a  retaliation  for  what  was  done  to  the  Epis- 
copal clergy  under  the  Long  Parliament.  But  those  who  re- 
jected the  Covenant  received  a  fifth  of  the  income  of  their  places 
for  the  supply  of  their  immediate  necessities.  In  their  case, 
also,  there  was  a  great  political  chvision,  a  civil  war  in  which 
the  ejected  ministers  were  against  the  ParUament;  while  the 
ministers  who  were  driven  from  their  parishes  in  1662  were 
loyal  supporters  of  Charles,  without  whom  he  might  never  have 
obtained  his  throne. 

Whoever  would  form  a  vivid  idea  of  the  demoralization  of 
the  EngUsh  Court,  should  read  the  Diaries  of  Pepys  and  Evelyn, 
both  of  them  RoyaHsts,  and  the  latter  a  man  of  elevated  char- 
acter, as  well  as  of  high  culture.  Men  who  had  risked  their  Uves 
for  the  fallen  dynasty,  but  who  retained  some  respect  for  mo- 
rality and  decency,  were  compelled  to  hide  their  heads  with 
mortification  at  the  shameless  profligacy  that  was  encouraged 
by  the  example  of  the  King. 

In  1670  Charles  II.  entered  into  the  secret  treaty  with 
Louis  XIV.,  which  has  been  described  as  "a  coahtion  against 
the  Protestant  faith  and  the  liberties  of  Europe."  It  was 
agreed  that  Charles,  at  the  fitting  time,  should  avow  himself 
a  Catholic,  and,  with  the  help  of  Louis,  establish  a  CathoUc 
rehgion  and  absolute  government  in  England.  In  return, 
Charles  was  to  help  Louis  in  his  ambitious  designs  upon  the 
Netherlands.  The  dominions  of  Spain  in  America  were,  if  prac- 
ticable, at  a  later  day,  to  be  divided  between  the  two  contracting 
powers.  It  is  hardly  probable  that  Louis  expected  to  carry 
out  the  plot  contained  in  this  treaty,  so  far  as  the  forcible 
estabhshment  of  the  CathoHc  rehgion  in  England  is  concerned. 
It  was  enough  for  him,  if  the  King  and  Parliament  remained 
in  a  constant  disagreement,  and  if  England  could  be  at  least  pre- 
vented from  interfering  with  his  schemes  of  conquest.  The 
hesitation  of  Charles  about  professing  his  Catholicism  retarded 
the  movement  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  treaty.  Strenu- 
ous opposition  had  sprung  up  in  Parliament  to  the  King,  and 
especially  to  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  who  was  an  avowed 
Catholic.  Fresh  severities  against  Dissenters  were  undertaken, 
for  the  purpose  of  conciliating  the  Anglican  clergy.  The  real 
designs  and  policy  of  Charles  became  evident  after  the  com- 
mencement of  the  war  against  Holland.     In  1673  a  Declaration 


THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1688  375 

of  Indulgence,  suspending  the  penal  laws  against  Dissenters, 
was  issued,  for  the  purpose  of  winning  their  support  or  of  de- 
luding them  into  a  false  sense  of  security.  Charles  II.  died  in 
1685. 

James  II.,  with  the  same  subservience  to  foreign  powers, 
and  the  same  arbitrary  notions  of  government  which  had  be- 
longed to  his  brother,  was  of  a  slower  and  more  obstinate  mind, 
and  differed  from  Charles  in  cherishing  a  sincere  and  bigoted 
attachment  to  the  Catholic  religion.  In  1686  the  Court  of 
High  Commission,  which  had  been  abolished  forever  by  the 
Long  Parliament,  was  revived,  and  the  notorious  Jeffreys  placed 
at  its  head.  Finding  that  the  Episcopalians  were  not  to  be 
won  by  the  persecution  of  the  Puritans,  the  Declaration  for 
Liberty  of  Conscience  was  issued  in  1687,  for  the  sake  of  enhst- 
ing  the  Dissenters  in  behalf  of  his  scheme  of  arbitrary  govern- 
ment. However  just  the  measure  might  be,  it  involved  in 
itself  a  violent  stretch  of  prerogative.  But  it  was  recognized 
as  a  part  of  a  scheme,  which,  if  accomplished,  would  bring  upon 
Nonconformists  and  Churchmen  alike  a  renewal  of  persecution 
in  the  most  unrelenting  form.  The  combination  of  parties, 
which  was  produced  by  the  plot  of  James  for  subverting  the 
Protestant  religion  and  establishing  Popery,  gave  rise  to  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  and  the  establishment  of  William  of  Orange 
upon  the  throne,  who  had  married  the  eldest  daughter  of  James, 
and  had  defended  Holland  and  Protestantism  against  the  assaults 
of  Louis  XIV.  At  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  says 
Hallam,  "the  Act  of  Toleration  was  passed  with  Httle  difficulty, 
though  not  without  murmurs  of  the  bigoted  Churchmen.  It 
exempts  from  the  penalties  of  existing  statutes  against  separate 
conventicles,  or  absence  from  the  estabhshed  worship,  such  as 
should  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  subscribe  to  the  Declara- 
tion against  Popery,  and  such  ministers  of  separate  congrega- 
tions as  should  subscribe  the  thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church 
of  England,  except  three,  and  a  part  of  a  fourth.  It  gives, 
also,  an  indulgence  to  Quakers,  without  this  condition.  Meet- 
ing houses  are  required  to  be  registered  and  are  protected  from 
insult  by  a  penalty.  No  part  of  this  toleration  is  extended  to 
Papists,  or  such  as  deny  the  Trinity."  The  subscription  to  the 
Articles  of  Faith  was  practically  dispensed  with;  "though," 
adds  Hallam,  "such  a  genuine  toleration  as  Christianity  and 


376  THE   REFORMATION 

philosophy  ahke  demand  had  no  place  in  our  statute  book 
before  the  reign  of  George  III." 

The  ministry  of  WilHam  III.,  when  they  introduced  the 
Toleration  Act,  introduced  also  a  Comprehension  Bill,  which 
released  Nonconformists  from  the  necessity  of  subscribing  the 
Articles  and  Homilies,  and  delivered  them  from  the  obligation 
to  fulfill  certain  ceremonies  that  were  most  obnoxious.  Had 
this  scheme  been  adopted,  Presbyterians  would  have  been 
admitted  to  the  charge  of  parishes  without  reordination.  It 
failed  by  the  force  of  the  opposition  to  it  in  Convocation,  to 
which  it  was  referred.  Moderate  Churchmen,  hke  Tillotson, 
Burnet,  Stillingfleet,  Patrick,  and  Beveridge,  were  outnumbered 
by  those  who  were  resolutely  averse  to  any  modifications  of  the 
Prayer-book.  The  measure  was  lost,  partly  from  the  strength 
of  this  Anti-Puritan  feeling,  partly  from  the  fact  that  Indepen- 
dents, Baptists,  and  Quakers  were  left  out  of  the  arrangement, 
which  was  shaped  for  the  benefit  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers 
exclusively.  The  fear  of  strengthening  the  Church  too  much, 
which  was  apt  to  be  an  ally  of  arbitrary  government,  influenced 
in  some  degree  the  minds  of  certain  statesmen.  The  great 
danger  connected  with  this  measure,  a  danger  that  was  better 
appreciated  afterwards,  was  that  of  giving  a  great  augmenta- 
tion of  strength  to  the  party  of  non-jurors,  who  had  forfeited 
their  benefices  rather  than  acknowledge  the  new  dynasty,  and 
who,  had  the  Liturgy  been  remodeled,  might  have  grown  into 
a  powerful  sect.  It  is  stated,  also,  by  Hallam  and  Macaulay, 
that  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  who  at  the  head  of  large 
churches  in  London  had  a  much  higher  and  more  comfortable 
station  than  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  degenerate  and  often  ill-treated 
parish  clergy,  were  lukewarm  in  favoring  the  adoption  of  the 
scheme,  if  not  decidedly  opposed  to  it.  That  they  took  this 
position  is,  however,  questioned  by  other  well-informed  writers.* 

The  Revolution  of  1688  led  to  the  permanent  estabhshment 
of  the  Presbyterian  as  the  national  Church  of  Scotland.^  Under 
Charles  II.  Episcopacy  was  established  by  law  in  Scotland, 
although  some  latitude  was  granted,  under  the  name  of  Indul- 
gence, with  regard  to  the  forms  of  public  worship.     A  fierce 

'  Vaughan,  p.  461.  The  character  of  the  scheme  and  the  proceedings  of 
Convocation  are  fully  described  by  Macaulay,  iii.  424  seq. 

^  See  Hallam,  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  xvii.  Macaulay,  Hist,  of  England  (  Harpers' 
Am.  ed.),  i.  172;   ii.  103  seq.;    115  seq.;    192;    iii.  225,  622. 


THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1688  377 

resistance  was  made  by  adherents  of  the  Covenant  during  this 
reign  and  in  the  reign  of  James  II.,  at  whose  instance  it  was 
made  a  capital  offense  to  preach  in  a  Presbyterian  conventicle, 
or  to  attend  such  a  meeting  in  the  open  air.  James  wanted  to 
have  the  Roman  Catholics  delivered  from  the  operation  of  penal 
laws,  but  to  allow  no  favor  to  the  Covenanters.  The  conces- 
sions which  he  was  at  last  compelled  to  make  to  them  were 
reduced  to  the  narrowest  compass.  But  they  stood  by  their 
cause  with  stubborn  bravery,  through  all  those  troubled 

"  times. 
Whose  echo  rings  through  Scotland  to  this  hour. " 

In  1690  the  system  which  was  obnoxious  to  the  body  of  the 
Scottish  people  was  abolished,  and  the  synodical  polity  estab- 
lished in  its  place.  In  the  course  of  this  revolution,  the  vindic- 
tive fury  of  the  populace  was  expressed  in  outrages  upon  the 
Episcopal  clergy,  who  suffered  numerous  indignities.  In  the 
language  of  the  time,  they  were  "rabbled." 

Henry  IV.,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  was  just  ready  to  inter- 
vene in  the  affairs  of  Germany,  in  pursuance  of  the  traditional 
PYench  policy,  which  looked  to  the  reduction  of  the  power  of 
Austria,  and  the  enlargement  of  the  boundaries  of  France.  In 
the  ten  years  that  followed  his  death,  after  Sully  had  retired 
from  office,  when  the  government  was  in  the  hands  of  Mary  de 
Medici,  the  factions  which  had  been  held  in  restraint  were  once 
more  let  loose,  and  the  path  which  Henry  had  entered  was  for 
the  time  abandoned. 

To  maintain  an  alliance  with  Spain,  which  was  to  be 
cemented  by  a  double  matrimonial  connection,  was  the  purpose 
of  the  Queen.  Nobles  who  were  disaffected  with  the  govern- 
ment courted  the  support  of  the  Huguenots  from  interested 
motives.  These  influences,  in  conjunction  with  the  various 
sorts  of  persecution  to  which  they  were  constantly  subject,  by 
the  permission,  if  not  at  the  instigation  of  the  government, 
and  through  the  hostile  preaching  of  the  Jesuits,  kept  the 
Huguenot  churches  in  a  state  of  perpetual  alarm  and  discon- 
tent. Their  counsels  were  divided,  some  advising  a  resort  to 
arms,  and  others,  hke  the  aged  Du  Plessis  Mornay,  advising 
patience.  The  invasion  of  Lower  Navarre  and  Beam  by  the 
King,  in  1620,  the  seizure  of  Church  property,  which  had  been 


378  THE    REFORMATION 

long  in  the  hands  of  the  Protestants,  and  the  infliction  of  atro- 
cious cruelties  upon  them  moved  the  National  Synod,  in  1621, 
by  a  small  majority,  to  decide  upon  war.  The  Huguenots,  a 
great  part  of  whom  remained  passive  and  neutral,  were  worsted, 
but  the  successful  resistance  of  Montauban,  and,  in  the  next 
year,  of  Montpellier,  led  to  a  treaty  in  which  the  Protestants 
were  confirmed  in  the  possession  of  their  reUgious  rights,  and 
Montauban  and  Rochelle  were  still  left  in  their  hands.  Their 
pecuUar  circumstances  gave  them  more  and  more  the  char- 
acter of  a  political  party,  with  which  malcontents  of  all  shades 
would  naturally  ally  themselves  within  the  kingdom,  and  which 
would  borrow  strength  by  a  connection  with  the  Protestants 
of  other  countries.  A  spirit  of  hostility  to  the  Crown  and  a 
love  of  independence  would  naturally  grow  in  the  Huguenot 
ranks;  and  this  took  place  at  the  very  time  when  the  Crown 
was  entering  upon  the  work  of  fully  subjugating  feudalism.^ 

With  the  reign  of  Louis  XIII.,  and  the  administration  of 
Richelieu,  there  was  a  return,  as  regards  foreign  affairs,  to  the 
pohcy  of  Henry  IV.  The  aim  of  Richelieu  (1624-1642),  as  far 
as  the  government  of  France  was  concerned,  was  to  consolidate 
the  monarchy,  by  bringing  the  aristocracy  into  thorough  sub- 
jection to  the  King,  and  by  inflicting  a  deadly  blow  on  the  old 
spirit  of  feudal  independence.  Under  him  began  the  process 
of  centralization,  of  officers  appointed  and  paid  by  the  govern- 
ment, which  was  fully  developed  in  France  after  the  great  Revo- 
lution. His  policy  involved  the  annihilation  of  the  Huguenot 
party,  as  a  distinct  political  organization,  a  state  within  the 
state;  and  this  he  accomplished  when  La  Rochelle,  the  last  of 
their  towns,  fell  into  his  hands  (1628). 

The  foreign  policy  of  Richelieu  receives  the  general  applause 
of  Frenchmen;  not  so  his  domestic  rule.  The  interests  of  the 
State  must  prevail  over  every  other  consideration.  This  was 
his  first  maxim.  To  this  end,  absolute  obedience  must  be  ex- 
acted of  all  orders  of  men,  and  disobedience  be  punished  with 
unrelenting  severity.  The  Prince  must  allow  no  interference 
of  the  Church  or  the  Pope  with  the  rights  of  the  civil  authority. 
Nobles  must  be  prevented  from  oppressing  the  people  and  must 
serve  the  State  in  war.  The  Judges  in  Parliament  must  be 
kept  from  interfering  with  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown.     The 

1  De  Felice,  Hist.  d.  Prot.  d.  France,  p.  307. 


THE   POLICY   OF   RICHELIEU   AND   LOUIS   XIV.        379 

people  must  be  kept  in  absolute  subjection,  and  be  subject  to 
burdens  not  so  heavy  as  to  crush  them,  nor  so  light  as  to  induce 
them  to  forget  their  subordination.  Care  should  rather  be 
had  for  the  culture  and  instruction  of  a  part  of  the  nation  than 
of  the  whole,  which  might  be  mischievous/  Richelieu  abolished 
anarchy,  but  he  made  it  possible  for  the  selfish  and  ruinous 
despotism  of  Louis  XIV.  to  arise  in  its  place.  His  destruction 
of  the  political  power  of  the  Huguenots  left  them  open  to  the 
deadly  assaults  of  rulers  more  fanatical  than  himself.  Had  he 
been  inclined,  or  if  inclined,  had  he  been  able,  to  draw  the 
Huguenot  power  on  his  side,  and  to  use  it  against  Spain,  the 
final  result  might  have  been  happier  for  France.^  In  truth, 
the  capture  of  La  Rochelle  gave  an  impulse  to  the  emigration 
of  Protestants,  and  France  began  to  lose  the  most  valuable 
portion  of  its  population.^  Abroad,  Richelieu  joined  with 
Sweden  and  with  the  Protestants  of  Germany  in  making  war 
upon  the  Hapsburg  dynasty,  and  succeeded  in  his  double  pur- 
pose of  breaking  down  the  imperial  power,  and  amplifying  the 
territory  of  France.  The  work  of  Richelieu  was  carried  for- 
ward in  the  same  spirit  by  Mazarin,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
reign  of  Louis  XIV.  The  design  of  this  monarch  was  to  make 
himself  an  absolute  ruler  in  France,  even  in  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
without  an  actual  separation  from  the  Papacy;  in  other  words, 
to  imitate  Henry  VIII.,  as  far  as  was  compatible  with  main- 
taining the  connection  of  the  French  Church  with  Rome;  and, 
in  relation  to  foreign  powers,  he  aspired  to  be  the  dictator  in 
the  European  commonwealth.  His  quarrel  with  the  Pope, 
his  persecution  of  the  Jansenists,  and  his  persecution  of  the 
Huguenots  are  the  three  principal  events  in  his  domestic 
religious  policy.  His  controversy  with  Innocent  X.  grew  out 
of  the  King's  attempt  to  extend  the  right  called  la  regale  —  that 

1  Richelieu's  political  Testament  is  well  epitomized  by  Hausser,  p.  586.  Of 
the  part  taken  by  Richelieu  in  the  composition  of  the  Testament  and  Memoirs, 
see  Ranke,  v.  137  seq.,  Martin,  xi.  591  seq. 

2  Martin  says  of  the  Huguenot  party  that  it  retarded  the  encroaching  wave 
of  despotism.  "Mieux  eht  valu  lancer  les  Rochelois  sur  I'Espagne  que  de  les 
d^truire.  Richelieu  n'abusa  point  de  sa  victoire,  mais  il  rendit  facile  k  un  autre 
d'en  abuser  apres  lui ;  La  Rochelle  debout,  ou  n'eut  os6  restaurer  I'ere  des  per- 
secutions et  r^voquer  I'^dit  de  Nantes."  xi.  307.  Michelet  observes  that  Henry 
IV.  and  Richelieu  both  aimed  at  national  unity,  but  by  different  means  —  the 
first  by  the  use,  the  second  by  the  destruction,  of  the  vital  forces.  Hist,  de  France, 
xi.  461.  Upon  Richelieu's  personal  traits,  see  Sismondi,  Hist,  des  Francois,  xxiii. 
1  seq.     Ranke  judges  him  more  favorably. 

'  Smiles,  The  Huguenots  in  England,  etc.,  1867. 


380  THE   REFORMATION 

is,  the  right  to  appropriate  the  revenues  of  a  see  and  tempo- 
rarily fill  the  vacancy,  until  a  new  incumbent  should  take  the 
oath  of  fidelity  to  the  King  —  to  extend  this  prerogative  over 
Burgundy,  the  old  English  portion  of  France,  and  portions  of 
the  kingdom  where  the  privilege  in  question  belonged  to  the 
local  ecclesiastical  authorities.  He  required  the  vassals'  oath 
of  the  bishops  in  these  districts,  and  they  were  supported  in 
their  refusal  to  grant  it  by  the  Pope.  Under  the  pontificate 
of  Innocent  XI.  the  Assembly  of  the  French  Clergy,  in  1682, 
supporting  the  views  of  the  King,  passed  the  famous  four  propo- 
sitions of  Galilean  liberty:  that  the  Pope  has  authority  only 
in  spiritual  matters,  not  over  kings  and  princes;  that  the 
authority  of  a  General  Council  is  above  that  of  the  Pope;  that 
the  Pope  is  bound  by  the  Church  laws,  and  by  the  particular 
institutions  and  usages  of  the  French  Church;  and  that  the 
doctrinal  decisions  of  the  Pope  are  not  irreformable,  unless  they 
are  supported  by  the  concurrence  of  the  whole  Church.  The 
long  controversy  was  at  length  adjusted  by  an  accommodation, 
under  Innocent  XII.,  in  which  Louis  retained  his  prerogative, 
which  had  formed  the  original  subject  of  dispute,  but  gave 
up  the  fom-  propositions.  He  allowed  bishops  to  retract  their 
assent  to  them,  but  would  not  suffer  them  to  be  compelled  to 
do  so.  Bossuet  had  assumed  the  post  of  a  literary  champion 
of  the  Galilean  theory,  in  behalf  of  the  King ;  but,  in  consequence 
of  the  settlement  just  referred  to,  his  celebrated  work  against 
the  ultramontane  type  of  Catholicism  did  not  see  the  light 
until  1730. 

Jansenism  was  a  reaction  within  the  Catholic  Church,  against 
the  theology,  casuistry,  and  general  spirit  of  the  Jesuit  order. 
Molina  and  other  theologians  set  up  a  middle  type  of  doctrine 
between  the  system  of  Augustine  and  that  of  Pelagius.  The 
Molinists  ingeniously  reserved  to  the  will  a  cooperative  part  in 
conversion.  Jansenism  was  a  revival  of  the  Augustinian  tenets 
upon  the  inability  of  the  fallen  will  and  upon  efficacious  grace. 
In  this  respect  the  Jansenists  were  on  the  same  path  as  the 
Reformers;  but,  unlike  these,  instead  of  going  back  of  the 
Fathers  in  order  to  abide  by  the  teaching  of  Scripture,  they 
rested  upon  patristic  authority  and  were  content  to  follow  im- 
plicitly the  great  founder  of  Latin  theology.*     Bajus,  professor 

'  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  iii.  143  seq. 


JANSENISM  381 

at  Louvain,  towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  led  the 
way  in  this  reassertion  of  Augustinian  principles.  But  it  was 
Jansenius,  also  a  professor  at  Louvain  and  Bishop  of  Ypres, 
and  his  fellow-student,  Duvergier,  Abbot  of  St.  Cyran,  who 
subsequently  gave  a  new  impetus  to  the  movement.  St.  Cyran, 
Pascal,  Arnauld,  Nicole,  and  their  associates,  who  were  called 
Port  Royalists,  from  their  relation  to  the  cloister  of  that  name, 
became  the  leaders  of  the  party.  If  we  glance  at  the  Jesuit 
fraternity  as  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
we  find  that  its  character  had  altered  for  the  worse. ^  Its  pro- 
fessed members  were  no  longer  confined  to  spiritual  duties, 
but  shared  with  the  coadjutors  the  management  of  colleges 
and  the  administration  of  secular  affairs.  The  religious  fervor 
that  had  existed  earlier  was  very  much  cooled.  The  obliga- 
tion to  renounce  property,  as  a  private  possession,  was  evaded. 
A  "mercantile  spirit"  crept  even  into  the  institutions  of  educa- 
tion which  had  been  established  by  the  order.  In  the  room  of 
defending  the  Papacy,  it  generally  sided  with  France  in  the 
contests  with  the  Holy  See.  By  the  policy  adopted  in  its 
Asiatic  missions,  the  Jesuit  order  at  length  came  into  conflict 
with  the  Capuchins  and  Franciscans,  as  it  had  offended  the 
Dominicans  by  opposing  the  doctrines  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 
The  Jesuits  gradually  ceased  to  be  absorbed  in  a  great  object, 
the  restoration  of  the  Papal  dominion  and  the  extension  of  it 
over  the  globe,  and  directed  their  energies  to  the  preservation 
of  their  own  power.  But  it  was  their  lax  ethical  maxims  which, 
more  than  any  other  cause,  undermined  their  reputation.  The 
"Provincial  Letters"  of  Pascal,  in  which  their  loose  casuistry 
was  chastised  with  the  keenest  satire,  inflicted  upon  them  a 
deadly  wound.  While  the  Jansenists,  who  were  in  favor  of 
the  independence  of  the  Church,  in  opposition  to  ultramontane 
usurpations,  supported  the  King  in  his  conflict  with  the  Pope, 
they  enjoyed  the  royal  favor;  but  when  they  set  themselves 
against  his  effort  to  bring  the  Church  under  his  feet,  he  turned 
against  them  and  gave  his  ear  to  the  inimical  suggestions  of 
the  Jesuits.  Finally,  in  1710,  he  pulled  down  the  cloister  of 
Port  Royal,  and  banished  the  Jansenist  leaders.  In  1708 
Clement  XI.  had  issued  a  bull,  prohibiting  the  "Moral  Reflec- 
tions" of  Quesnel,  a  work  which  had  been  approved  by  Bossuet 

•  Ranke,  iii.  131  seq. 


382  THE   REFORMATION 

and  by  Noailles,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris.  This  was  followed 
by  a  heavier  blow  at  the  Jansenist  party  in  1713,  in  the  form 
of  the  famous  bull,  Unigenitus,  which  explicitly  condemned 
one  hundred  and  one  propositions  of  the  same  book.  The 
Pope  was  forced  into  this  action  by  the  French  Court,  under 
the  influence  of  Father  Le  Tellier,  who  had  declared  that  there 
were  more  than  a  hundred  censurable  propositions  in  the  book. 
Clement  was  obliged  to  make  good  the  declaration  by  con- 
demning one  hundred  and  one.  It  was  not  the  Jansenists  alone, 
but  all  true  Galileans,  who  were  attacked  in  these  proceedings. 
This  controversy  was  continued  in  the  next  reign,  after  the 
death  of  Louis  XIV.,  between  the  Opposants  or  Appellants  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  Acceptants  or  Constitutionaires,  the  ad- 
versaries of  the  Jansenists,  on  the  other.  The  Papal  authority 
was  brought  to  bear  against  the  Jansenist  opinions,  in  sub- 
servience to  the  dictation  of  the  Court,  and  this  coercion  had  a 
demoralizing  effect  upon  the  French  clergy,  many  of  whom 
were  forced  into  a  denial  of  their  real  convictions.  The  Jansen- 
ists survived  in  the  separatist  archiepiscopal  Church  of  Utrecht, 
and  still  more  in  combination  with  the  tendencies  to  liberalism, 
out  of  which  grew  the  political  and  religious  revolutions  that 
marked  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century.^ 

The  Huguenots,  under  Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  had  been 
protected  in  their  religious  freedom.  It  was  only  as  a  political 
organization  that  these  statesmen  had  made  war  upon  them. 
After  the  death  of  Mazarin,  in  1661,  a  party  that  was  hostile  to 
the  Protestants  gained  an  increasing  influence  over  the  King, 
whose  personal  vices  were  attended  with  forebodings  of  remorse, 
and  with  superstitious  anxieties  that  sought  relief  in  the  perse- 
cution of  heresy.  He  fell  under  the  influence  of  his  Jesuit  Con- 
fessor, La  Chaise,  with  whom  were  joined  the  war-minister, 
the  Marquis  de  Louvois,  and  even  Madam  Maintenon,  his  wife, 
formerlj'-  a  Protestant.  Hence  the  great  attempt  to  make 
proselytes  by  the  use  of  all  varieties  of  cruelty.  "For  many 
years,"  says  Martin,  the  government  of  Louis  XIV.  ''had  been 
acting  towards  the  Reformation  as  towards  a  victim  entangled 
in  a  noose,  which  is  drawn  tighter  and  tighter  till  it  strangles 
its  prey."  Declarations  and  edicts  of  the  most  oppressive  char- 
acter had  followed  one  another  in  rapid  succession.     At  length 

*  Niedner,  Kirchengeschichte,  p.  751. 


PERSECUTION   OF  THE   HUGUENOTS  383 

the  atrocious  scheme  of  the  dragonade,  or  the  billeting  of  soldiers 
in  Huguenot  families,  was  resorted  to.  Over  the  pretended 
conversions  effected  by  such  means  the  profligate  rulers  of 
France  sang  praises  to  God.  Louis  XIV.  endeavored  to  quiet 
his  own  fear  of  hell  by  making  a  hell  for  his  unoffending  sub- 
jects. The  penalty  of  death  was  denounced  against  all  con- 
verts who  relapsed  to  the  Huguenot  faith.  In  the  course  of 
three  years  fifty  thousand  families  had  fled  from  the  country. 
In  1685  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  the  great  charter  of  Protestant 
rights,  was  revoked.  The  churches  of  the  Huguenots  were 
seized;  and  although  emigration  was  forbidden  to  the  laity, 
not  far  from  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  refugees  escaped  to 
enrich  Protestant  countries  to  which  they  removed  by  their 
skill  and  industry.  Many  remained  firm  under  the  severest 
trials,  and  assembled  in  forests  and  by-places  to  celebrate  their 
worship.  It  was  not  until  1788  that  their  marriages,  which 
had  been  treated  as  invalid,  were  pronounced  legal;  and  they 
did  not  gain  their  rights  in  full  until  the  Revolution. 

"France  was  impoverished,"  writes  Martin,  "not  only  in 
Frenchmen  who  exiled  themselves,  but  in  those  much  more 
numerous,  who  remained,  in  spite  of  themselves,  discouraged, 
ruined,  whether  they  openly  resisted  persecution,  or  suffered 
some  external  observances  of  Catholicism  to  be  wrung  from 
them,  all  having  neither  energy  in  work  or  security  in  life;  it 
was  really  the  activity  of  more  than  a  million  of  men  that  France 
lost,  and  of  the  million  that  produced  most."  It  is  a  significant 
fact,  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  that  many  of  the  refu- 
gees were  received  by  the  Elector  Frederic,  and  helped  to  build 
up  Berlin,  then  a  small  city  of  twelve  thousand  inhabitants. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession  (1713), 
at  the  instigation  of  Le  Tellier,  who  had  succeeded  La  Chaise  as 
a  kind  of  minister  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  the  persecution  against 
the  Protestants  was  renewed,  in  forms  of  aggravated  and  in- 
genious cruelty. 

In  his  foreign  policy  Louis  XIV.  succeeded  brilliantly  for 
a  time,  but  was  doomed  to  terrible  disappointment  and  defeat. 
He  made  himself  as  formidable  by  his  power  and  ambition  as 
Philip  II.  had  been  in  the  latter  part  of  the  preceding  century; 
and  like  him  he  was  destined  to  experience  a  mortifying  failure, 
as  well  as  to  lay  the  foundation  of   untold   calamities  for  his 


384  THE   REFORMATION 

nation.  His  attack  on  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  which  were 
regarded  by  Holland  as  a  bulwark  against  his  inroads  and 
aggression,  led  to  the  triple  alliance  of  Holland,  England,  and 
Sweden,  in  1668,  the  object  of  which  was  to  compel  him  to  con- 
clude a  peace  with  Spain.  The  same  year  he  concluded  with 
Spain  the  peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle.  The  resentment  of  Louis 
against  Holland  led  him  to  form,  in  1670,  the  secret  treaty 
with  Charles  II.,  in  behalf  of  Catholicism  and  absolutism.  But 
the  unpopularity  of  the  war  against  Holland  among  the  Eng- 
lish, and  the  necessity  under  which  Charles  was  placed,  of 
making  peace  with  the  Dutch,  together  with  a  like  course  on  the 
part  of  other  allies  of  Louis,  led  to  the  treaty  of  Nimeguen  in 
1678-1679,  by  which  he  gained  a  number  of  towns  and  fortresses 
in  the  Netherlands,  besides  certain  German  places.  Holland 
was  left  in  the  same  state  as  before  the  war.  The  continued 
aggressions  of  Louis  occasioned  the  grand  alliance  of  the  Euro- 
pean powers  against  him  and  the  war  of  ten  years,  in  which 
William  of  Orange  was  the  foremost  leader  among  the  allies. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  previous  war,  when  Holland  was  over- 
run by  the  French  armies  and  reduced  almost  to  despair,  the 
Republican  magistrates  were  overthrown  and  the  government 
placed  in  the  hands  of  William.  By  him  the  courage  of  the 
nation  had  been  roused,  and,  as  the  only  means  of  defense,  they 
had  cut  through  the  dykes  and  inundated  the  country.  Thence- 
forward William  was  the  most  determined  and  dangerous  antag- 
onist of  Louis,  and  the  moving  spirit  of  the  coalitions  formed 
against  him.  In  the  peace  of  Ryswick,  in  1697,  Louis  renounced 
his  support  of  the  Stuarts,  and  admitted  William  III.  to  be 
the  rightful  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  The  war  of 
the  Spanish  succession,  in  which  Louis  sought  to  supplant  the 
Austrian  House  in  Spain  and  to  combine  Spain  with  France, 
by  placing  his  grandson,  Philip,  Duke  of  Anjou,  on  the  Spanish 
throne,  was  closed  in  1713  by  the  peace  of  Utrecht.  It  was 
provided  that  France  and  Spain  should  never  be  united  under 
one  sovereign;  the  Spanish  Netherlands  were  transferred  to 
Austria;  and  the  Bourbon  Prince  was  left  on  the  throne  of 
Spain,  and  his  title  was  acknowledged  by  the  allies  in  1714. 
The  "grand  monarch"  came  out  of  the  wars  which  had  been 
kindled  by  his  ambition,  thwarted  and  reduced  to  distress.  A 
significant  feature  of  the  peace  of  Utrecht  was  the  recognition 


TRIUMPHS   AND    DEFEAT    OF   LOUIS   XIV.  385 

of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  as  King  of  Prussia.  As  Sweden 
sank  down  from  the  eminence  which  it  held  for  a  time,  as  the 
leading  Protestant  power  in  the  North,  Prussia  was  rising  to 
take  her  place. 

The  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  effected  the  utter  paralysis  and 
prostration  of  the  Catholic  Reaction.  The  Popes  found  them- 
selves unable  to  contend  with  the  temporal  power. ^  The  dis- 
position of  several  pontiffs  to  favor  the  side  of  Spain  and 
Austria  sharpened  the  antagonism  between  them  and  the  French 
king,  and  subjected  them  to  humihation.  When  Clement  XI. 
abandoned  the  anti-French  policy,  he  was  obliged  to  succumb 
to  the  threats  of  the  imperialists.  Treaties  of  peace  were  con- 
cluded between  the  European  nations,  in  which  the  interests 
and  even  rights  of  the  Popes  were  involved,  but  in  regard  to 
which  they  were  not  consulted.  The  Church  of  France  re- 
mained CathoUc ;  it  was  even  guilty  of  a  revolting  persecution ; 
but  it  united  with  the  monarch  in  abridging  the  power  and 
thwarting  the  designs  of  the  Holy  See.  Not  only  was  the 
Catholic  world  divided  into  two  parties,  the  Austrian  and 
French,  which  the  Pope  could  not  control,  but  the  Protestant 
States  acquired  a  preponderance  of  power;  and  the  Court  of 
Innocent  XI.  naturally  sympathized  with  the  coalition,  al- 
though its  forces  were  predominantly  Protestant,  the  end  of 
which  was  to  curb  the  ambition  of  Louis  XIV. 

Even  the  persecuting  measures  which  Louis  XIV.  adopted 
ostensibly  in  behalf  of  the  Catholic  reUgion  were  in  the  highest 
degree  harmful  to  it ;  for  the  hatred  of  these  atrocious  proceed- 
ings contributed  to  swell  the  current  of  antipathy  to  the  Church 
and  to  religion,  which  was  gathering  force  in  the  minds  of  men. 
The  Bull  Unigenitus,  as  it  condemned  Jansenism  and  Augustin- 
ian  doctrine,  brought  the  Jesuits  into  alliance  with  the  Papal 
See.  But  this  Bull,  with  the  cognate  measures,  divided  the 
clergy  and  excited  all  the  elements  of  opposition  to  the  Papal 
supremacy  over  the  Galilean  Church.  The  Jansenists  became 
virtual  auxiliaries  of  the  rising  party,  in  whom  the  spirit  of 
innovation  had  full  sway. 

Louis  XIV.  died  in  1715.  Voltaire  was  then  about  twenty- 
one  years  old.  The  age  of  philosophy  and  illuminism,  of  reli- 
gious and   poUtical   revolutions,  was  approaching.     The  third 

1  Ranke,  iii.  15G. 


386  THE   REFORMATION 

estate,  the  middle  class,  was  preparing  to  grasp  the  power  which 
had  been  wrested  from  the  nobles  and  concentrated  in  the 
throne.  Free-thinking,  transplanted  from  England,  was  taking 
root  and  spreading  through  all  orders  of  French  society,  thence 
to  be  diffused  over  Europe.  The  fabric  of  political  and  reli- 
gious despotism  which  Louis  XIV.  had  erected,  was  to  go  down 
before  the  end  of  the  century  in  a  revolutionary  tempest. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   PROTESTANT  THEOLOGY 

Protestantism,  under  whatever  diversities  of  form  it  ap- 
peared, and  notwithstanding  the  varieties  of  character  and  of 
opinion  which  are  observed  among  its  leaders,  is  distinguished 
as  a  system  of  beUef  by  two  principles.  These  are  justification 
by  faith  alone,  and  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Scriptures.^ 

The  subject  round  which  the  Protestant  discussions  re- 
volved, and  out  of  which  they  originally  sprang,  is  the  recon- 
ciliation of  man  to  God.  The  controversy  with  the  Roman 
Catholics  did  not  relate  to  the  branches  of  theology  on  which 
the  ancient  councils  had  spoken.  The  Apostolic  symbol,  the 
creeds  of  Nicsea  and  Chalcedon,  were  accepted  in  common  by 
both  parties.  In  respect  to  the  Trinity  and  the  person  of  Christ 
they  stood  on  the  same  ground.  On  the  subject  of  Anthro- 
pology, the  doctrine  of  sin,  it  is  true  that  the  Reformers  ear- 
nestly asserted  the  Augustinian  views,  in  opposition  to  that 
modified  opinion,  less  hostile  to  the  Pelagian  tenet,  which  had 

'  Among  the  books  of  reference  respecting  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic 
Theology  are  the  Collections  of  Creeds ;  the  Lutheran  (edited  by  Hase,  1846) ; 
The  Book  of  Concord,  or  the  Symbolical  Books  of  the  Evangelical  Lutheran  Church, 
edited  by  Prof.  H.  E.  Jacobs  (pp.  672),  Philadelphia,  1882.  The  Reformed  (by 
Niemeyer,  1840) ;  The  Roman  Catholic  (by  Streitwolf  u.  Kleiner,  1846).  See,  also, 
Schaff,  The  Creeds  of  Christendom  (1877).  Calvin's  Institutes  and  Melancthon's 
Loci  Communes  are  the  principal  doctrinal  treatises  on  the  Protestant  side  in  the 
age  of  the  Reformation.  Bellarmine  is  still  the  ablest  controversialist  on  the 
Catholic  side  since  the  Tridentine  Council ;  Disputationes  de  Controversiis  Chris- 
tiana Fidei  adv.  hujus  Temporis  hcereticos  (Rome,  1581,  1582,  1593).  The  ablest 
antagonists  of  Bellarmine  were  Martin  Chemnitz,  Examen  Condi  Trid.  (1565-73), 
and  the  Huguenot  theologian,  Chamier,  Panstratice  Catholicoe,  etc.  (Geneva,  1626 ; 
Frankfort,  1629).  A  convenient  manual  of  Catholic  Theology  is  Perrone,  Prce- 
lectiones  Theologicce  (2  vols.,  1847).  Among  the  modern  works  on  Protestant  The- 
ology are  Planck,  Gsch.  d.  prot.  Lehrbegriffs  (1781-1800) ;  Gass,  Gsch.  d.  prot. 
Dogmatik  (1862) ;  A.  Schweizer,  Die  prot.  C entral-dogmen  innerhalb  d.  ref.  Kirche 
(1854);  Heppe,  Dogmatik  d.  deutsch  Prot.  (1857);  Dorner,  Gsch.  d.  prot.  Theol. 
(1867);  Schenkel,  Das  Wesen  d.  Prot.  (1846).  Karl  Hase,  Handbuch  d.  Protes- 
tantischen  Polemik  (1871).  See,  also,  Werner,  Gsch.  d.  kath.  Theol.  seit  d.  Trid.  Cone. 
(1866).  To  these  are  to  be  added  numerous  modern  works  on  Symbolics  and  on 
the  History  of  Doctrine,  by  Neander,  Harnack,  Klee  (Roman  Cath.),  Baumgarten- 
Crusius,  Hagenbach,  Schaff,  Baur,  Mohler  (Rom.  Cath.),  Fisher  (G.  P.),  Nitzsch 
(1870),  Winer,  Shedd,  Sheldon,  Schmid  (4.  ed.  Hauck),  1887. 

387 


388  THE  REFORMATION 

been  distinctly  espoused  by  one  of  the  leading  mediaeval  schools, 
the  followers  of  Scotus,  and  had  affected  all  of  the  scholastic 
systems.  It  was  in  their  profound  sense  of  the  reahty  of  sin, 
and  of  its  dominion  in  the  human  will,  that  the  Protestants 
laid  the  foundations  of  their  theology.  ZwingU  alone,  of  all 
the  foremost  Reformers,  called  in  question  the  fact  of  native 
guilt,  as  tliis  is  asserted  in  the  Augustinian  theology;  and  even 
he  did  not  adhere  uniformly  to  his  theory.  But  the  doctrine 
of  sin  was  only  indirectly  and  subordinately  brought  into  the 
debate.^  The  same  might  be  said  of  the  Atonement,  since  the 
body  of  the  Reformers  rested  on  the  Anselmic  idea  of  satisfac- 
tion, which  likewise  formed  a  part  of  the  opposing  creed.^  The 
point  of  difference  was  on  the  vital  question  how  the  soul,  bur- 
dened with  self-condemnation,  is  to  obtain  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  and  peaceful  reunion  to  God  in  the  character  of  a  recon- 
ciled father.  In  the  teachings,  injunctions,  services,  ceremonies 
of  the  Church,  the  Reformers  had  sought  for  this  infinite  good 
in  vain.  They  found  it  in  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  pardon, 
from  the  bare  mercy  of  God,  through  the  mediation  of  Christ; 
a  pardon  that  waits  for  nothing  but  acceptance  on  the  part 
of  the  soul  —  the  beUef,  the  trust,  the  faith  of  the  penitent. 
Everything  of  the  nature  of  satisfaction  or  merit  on  the  part 
of  the  offender  is  precluded,  by  the  utterly  gratuitous  nature 
of  the  gift,  by  the  sufficiency  of  the  Redeemer's  expiation. 
Every  assertion  of  the  necessity  of  works  or  merit  on  the  side 
of  the  offender,  as  the  ground  of  forgiveness,  is  a  disparagement 
of  the  Redeemer's  mercy  and  of  his  expiatory  office.  Faith, 
thus  laying  hold  of  a  free  forgiveness  and  reconnecting  the  soul 
with  God,  is  the  fountain  of  a  new  life  of  holiness,  which  de- 

•  The  Protestants  held  that  the  moral  perfections  —  that  is,  the  holiness  —  of 
the  first  man  are  concreated ;  the  Catholics,  that  they  are  superadded  gifts  of 
grace.  Cat.  Rom.,  i.  ii.  qu.  19.  This  doctrine  of  the  donum  supernaturale  is  drawn 
out  in  full  by  Bellarmine,  Grat.  primi  Horn.,  ii.  The  effect  of  the  fall  is  said  by 
the  Catholics  to  be  the  loss  of  the  donum  supernaturale,  and  a  consequent,  though 
indirect,  weakening  of  the  natural  powers  (vulnera  naturae)  ;  by  the  Protestants  it 
was  held  to  be  a  positive  depravation  of  human  nature.  Bellarmine,  Amis.  Grat., 
III.  i. ;  Conf.  August.,  p.  9;  Apol.  August.  Conf.,  p.  51 ;  Conf.  Helvet.,  u.  cc.  viii.,  ix. 

^  The  doctrine  common  to  Anselm  and  Aquinas  that  the  satisfaction  of  Christ 
is  absolute  in  itself,  and  infinite,  was  denied  only  by  the  school  of  Scotus,  who 
held  that  it  is  finite,  but  is  accepted  by  the  divine  will  —  acceptilatio  —  for  more 
than  its  intrinsic  worth.  The  Tridentine  creed  denies  that  pardon  carries  with 
it  the  remission  of  all  punishment ;  but  asserts  that  the  satisfaction  rendered  by 
the  sinner  is  available  only  through  the  satisfaction  of  Christ.  Sess.  xiv.  c.  viii. 
See  Baumgarten-Crusius,  Dogmcngsch.,  ii.  273,  n.  a. 


JUSTIFICATION   BY    FAITH  389 

pends  not  on  fear  and  homage  to  law,  but  on  gratitude  and  on 
filial  sentiments.  Christ  himself  nourishes  this  new  life  by 
spiritual  influences  that  flow  into  the  soul  through  the  channel 
of  its  fellowship  with  Him.  Justification  is  thus  a  forensic 
term;  it  is  equivalent  to  the  remission  of  sins.  To  justify, 
signifies  not  to  make  the  offender  righteous,  but  to  treat  him 
as  if  he  were  righteous,  to  deliver  him  from  the  accusation  of 
the  law  by  the  bestowal  of  a  pardon.  Saving  faith  is  not  a 
virtue  to  be  rewarded,  but  an  apprehensive  act,  the  hand  that 
takes  the  free  gift.  Such,  in  a  brief  statement,  was  the  car- 
dinal principle  of  the  Protestant  interpretation  of  the  Gospel.^ 
The  Christian  Ufe  has  its  center  in  this  experience  of  forgiveness. 
Virtues  of  character  and  victories  over  temptation  grow  out 
of  it.  Christian  ethics  is  united  to  Christian  theology  by  this 
vital  bond. 

But  to  what  authority  could  the  Reformers  appeal  in  behalf 
of  their  proposition?  What  assurance  had  they  of  its  truth? 
How  did  they  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  it?  They  had  found 
this  obscured  and  half-forgotten  truth  recorded,  as  they  be- 
lieved, with  perfect  clearness,  in  the  Scriptures.  The  authority 
of  the  Scriptures  was  fully  acknowledged  by  the  Church  in 
which  they  had  been  trained,  however  it  might  superadd  to 
them  other  authoritative  sources  of  knowledge,  and  however 
it  might  deny  the  competence  of  the  individual  to  interpret 
the  Bible  for  himself.  That  Christ  spoke  in  the  Scriptures, 
all  admitted.  What  His  voice  was  the  Reformers  could  not 
doubt;  for  the  truth  that  He  uttered  was  one  of  which  they 
had  an  immediate,  spiritual  recognition.  Their  interpretation 
verified  itself  to  their  hearts  by  the  fight  and  peace  which  that 
truth  brought  with  it,  as  well  as  to  their  understandings  on  a 
critical  examination  of  the  text.  The  Church,  then,  that  denied 
their  interpretation  and  commanded  them  to  abandon  it  was 
in  error;  it  could  not  be  the  authorized,  infalfible  interpreter 
of  Holy  Writ.  Thus  the  traditional  belief  in  the  authority  of 
the  Roman  Church  gave  way,  and  the  principle  of  the  exclusive 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  as  the  rule  of  faith,  took  its  place. 
By  this  process  the  second  of  the  distinctive  principles  of  Protes- 

>  This  idea  of  justification  is  the  keynote  in  Luther's  Commentary  on  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  and  in  Melancthon's  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans.  It  is  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  Protestant  exegesis  of  the  writings 
of  St.  Paul. 


390  THE   REFORMATION 

tantism  was  reached.  That  the  meaning  of  the  Bible  is  suffi- 
ciently plain  and  intelligible  was  imphed  in  this  conclusion. 
Hence,  the  right  of  private  judgment  is  another  side  of  the 
same  doctrine. 

In  the  adoption  of  this,  which  has  been  called  the  formal, 
in  distinction  from  the  first,  which  is  termed  the  material,  prin- 
ciple of  Protestantism,  there  was  no  dissent  among  the  churches 
of  the  reformed  faith.  Thus  the  Anglican  body,  which  surpassed 
all  other  Protestant  churches  in  its  deference  to  the  fathers 
and  to  the  first  centuries,  affirms  this  principle.  It  accepts, 
in  the  eighth  article,  the  ancient  creeds,  on  the  ground  that 
they  may  be  proved  by  most  certain  warrants  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture; it  declares,  in  the  nineteenth  article,  that  the  Church  of 
Rome,  as  well  as  the  Churches  of  Jerusalem,  Alexandria,  and 
Antioch  have  erred  in  matters  of  faith;  and  in  the  twenty- 
first  article  it  asserts  that  general  councils  may  err  and  have 
erred  in  things  pertaining  to  the  rule  of  piety,  and  that  their 
decrees  are  to  be  accepted  no  farther  than  they  can  be  shown 
to  be  conformable  to  the  sacred  writings. 

The  two  principles  are  united  in  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
direct  relation  of  Christ  to  the  believer  as  his  personal  Redeemer 
and  Guide. 

The  Roman  Catholic  theory  of  Justification  may  be  so  stated 
as  to  seem  to  approximate  closely  to  that  of  the  Protestants; 
but  on  a  close  examination,  the  two  doctrines  are  seen  to  be  dis- 
cordant with  one  another.  In  the  formula  which  defines  the 
condition  of  salvation  to  be  faith  formed  by  love  —  jides  jormata 
caritate  —  a  separation  between  faith  and  love  is  conceived 
of,  in  which  the  latter  becomes  the  adjunct  of  the  former;  and 
inasmuch  as  love  is  the  injunction  of  the  law,  a  door  is  open  for 
a  theory  of  works  and  human  merit,  and  for  all  the  discomforts 
of  that  legal  and  introspective  piety  from  which  the  evangelical 
doctrine  furnished  the  means  of  escape.  Faith,  in  the  Protes- 
tant view,  is  necessarily  the  source  of  good  works,  which  flow 
from  it  as  a  stream  from  a  fountain;  which  grow  from  it  as 
fruit  from  a  tree.  The  tendency  of  the  Catholic  system  is  to 
conjoin  works  with  faith,  and  thus  to  resolve  good  works  into  a 
form  of  legal  obedience.  Moreover,  Justification  does  not  begin 
as  in  the  Protestant  theology,  with  the  forgiveness  of  sins;  but 
the  first  element  in  Justification  is  the  infusion  of  inward,  per- 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   DOCTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION       391 

sonal  righteousness,  and  pardon  follows.  Justification  is  grad- 
ual/ By  this  incipient  excellence  of  character,  the  Christian  is 
made  capable  of  meriting  grace ;  and  however  this  doctrine  may 
be  qualified  and  guarded  by  founding  all  merit  ultimately  on 
the  merits  of  Christ,  from  which  the  sanctification  of  the  disci- 
ple flows,  the  legal  characteristic  cleaves  to  the  doctrine.  But 
the  wide  difference  of  the  Catholic  conception  from  the  Protes- 
tant becomes  evident,  when  it  is  remembered  that  according  to 
the  former,  for  all  sins  committed  after  baptism,  the  offender 
owes  and  must  render  satisfaction  —  a  satisfaction  that  derives 
its  efficacy,  to  be  sure,  from  that  made  by  Christ,  but  yet  is 
not  the  less  indispensable  and  real.  And  how  is  Justification 
imparted?  How  does  it  begin?  It  is  communicated  through 
baptism,  and,  hence,  generally,  in  infancy.  It  is  Justification  by 
baptism  rather  than  by  faith ;  and  for  all  sins  subsequently  com- 
mitted, penances  are  due;  satisfaction  must  be  offered  by  the 
transgressor  himself.  We  are  thus  brought  to  the  whole  theory 
of  the  Church  and  of  the  Sacraments,  in  which  the  discrepancy 
between  the  two  theologies  is  most  manifest. 

If  the  conflict  of  the  two  theologies  were  limited  to  this  topic 
of  Justification  and  of  the  relation  of  faith  to  works ;  if  the  dis- 
pute could  be  shut  up  to  subtle  questions  and  tenuous  distinc- 
tions of  theological  science,  it  might  be  more  easily  settled.  On 
these  questions  a  meeting-point  might  possibly  be  found.  But 
the  Protestant  interpretation  of  the  Gospel  involved  a  denial  of 
the  prerogatives  of  the  vast  Institution  which  assumed  to 
intervene  between  the  soul  and  God,  as  the  almoner  of  grace 
and  the  ruler  of  the  beliefs  and  lives  of  men. 

The  Reformers,  in  harmony  with  their  idea  of  the  way  of  sal- 
vation which  has  been  described,  brought  forward  the  conception 
of  the  invisible  Church.  The  true  Church,  they  said,  is  com- 
posed of  all  believers  in  Christ,  all  who  are  spiritually  united  in 
Him;  and  of  the  Church  as  thus  defined,  He  is  the  Head.  This 
is  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  to  which  the  Apostles'  Creed  refers, 
and  in  which  the  disciple  professes  his  belief;  ''for  we  believe," 
said  Luther,  referring  to  this  passage  of  the  creed,  "not  in  what 
we  see,  but  in  what  is  invisible."  The  visible  Church,  on  the 
contrary,  is  a  congregation  of  believers  in  which  the  word  of 
God  is  preached  and  the  sacraments  administered  essentially  as 

>  Concil,  Trident  Sess.  vi.  c.  x. 


392  THE   REFORMATION 

they  were  instituted  by  Christ.  But  no  single  visible  body  of 
Christians  can  justly  assume  to  be  the  entire  Church;  much  less 
exclude  from  the  pale  of  salvation  all  who  are  not  included  in 
their  number.  The  true  Church  is  an  ideal,  which  is  realized 
but  imperfectly  in  any  existing  organization.  External  societies 
of  Christians  are  more  or  less  pure ;  they  approximate,  in  differ- 
ent degrees,  to  a  conformity  to  the  idea  of  the  real  or  invisible 
community.  The  Protestants  carefully  refrained  from  arro- 
gating for  the  bodies  which  they  organized  an  exclusive  title  to 
be  considered  the  Church.  When  charged  with  being  apostates 
from  the  Church,  and  when  themselves  denouncing  the  Papacy 
as  the  embodiment  of  Antichrist,  they  never  denied  that  the 
true  Church  of  Christ  was  on  the  side  of  their  opponents,  as  well 
as  with  themselves.  ''I  say,"  said  Luther,  "that  under  the 
Pope  is  real  Christianity,  yea  the  true  pattern  of  Christianity, 
and  many  pious,  great  saints."  Calvin  has  similar  expressions; 
for  example,  in  his  noted  Letter  to  Sadolet. 

The  Roman  Catholic  theory  affixes  the  attributes  of  unity, 
holiness,  catholicity,  and  apostolicity  to  the  external,  visible 
society  of  which  the  Bishop  of  Rome  is  the  chief,  and  declares 
that  outside  of  this  body  there  is  no  salvation.  The  notes  of  the 
true  Church  belong  to  this  society ;  and  accordingly  the  promises 
made  in  the  New  Testament  to  the  Church,  and  the  privileges 
there  ascribed  to  it,  are  claimed  for  this  body  exclusively.  The 
Church,  says  Bellarmine,  is  something  as  tangible  as  the  Repub- 
lic of  Venice.  In  opposition  to  the  second  of  the  Protestant 
principles,  the  traditions  of  the  oral  teaching  of  Christ  and  of 
the  Apostles,  which,  it  is  claimed,  are  infallibly  preserved  in  the 
Church,  through  the  supernatural  aid  of  the  indwelling  Spirit, 
are  put  on  a  level  with  Scripture,  and  of  Scripture  itself,  the 
Church  is  the  appointed,  unerring  expounder.  It  was  not  an 
uncommon  thing  in  the  Middle  Ages  for  doctrines  to  be  attrib- 
uted to  revelations  made  to  the  Church,  subsequent  to  the 
Apostolic  age;  doctrines  not  supposed  to  be  contained  in  the 
Scriptures.  But  the  prevailing  Catholic  doctrine  since  the  Ref- 
ormation finds  the  entire  revelation  as  a  complete  deposit,  in 
the  written  and  oral  teaching  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles.  The 
connection  of  the  individual  with  Christ  is  not  possible,  except 
through  his  connection  with  the  Church.  In  the  Catholic  theory 
the  invisible  Church  is  not  only  included  in  the  visible  organiza- 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SACRAMENTS  393 

tion  in  communion  with  the  Papal  See,  but  it  cannot  exist  out 
of  it  or  apart  from  it/ 

As  an  inseparable  part  of  the  Catholic  theory  of  the  Church 
stands  the  doctrine  of  a  particular  priesthood  and  of  the  sacra- 
ments. The  idea  of  the  sacraments  was  fully  developed  by  the 
Schoolmen,  and  the  number,  which  had  been  indefinite  and 
variable,  was  fixed  at  seven.  It  is  essential  to  the  conception 
of  the  sacrament  that  it  should  efficiently  convey  the  hidden 
gift  of  grace  which  it  symbolizes.  It  is  the  channel  through 
which  the  grace  is  communicated;  the  ordained  and  indispens- 
able vehicle  by  which  it  passes  to  the  individual;  the  instru- 
ment by  the  direct  operation  of  which  the  divine  mercy  reaches 
the  soul.^  Hence  the  efficacy  of  a  sacrament  is  independent  of 
the  personal  character  of  the  administrator,  provided  he  have 
the  intention  to  perform  the  sacramental  act;  for  such  an 
intention  is  requisite.  The  sacrament,  moreover,  imparts  a 
divine  gift  which  is  not  involved  in,  nor  produced  by,  the  faith 
of  the  recipient :  it  is  ex  opere  operato.  The  effect  is  wrought,  in 
case  the  recipient  interposes  no  obstacle.^    The  sacraments  are 

*  In  the  later  editions  of  his  Loci,  Melancthon  treats  of  the  visible  church 
alone.  He  was  led  to  this  course,  not  by  a  change  of  opinion  respecting  the  reality 
of  the  conception  of  the  invisible  Church,  but  in  consequence  of  the  aberrations, 
in  a  spiritualistic  direction,  of  the  Anabaptists.  He  is  concerned  to  guard  against 
the  notion  that  the  invisible  Church  is  a  mere  ideal,  or  is  to  be  sought  for  outside 
of  all  existing  ecclesiastical  organizations  —  a  mere  Platonic  republic.  See 
Julius  Miiller,  Dogmatische  Abhandlungen  (Die  unsichtbare  Kirche),  pp.  297,  298. 

*  "Per  quse  omnis  vera  justitia  vel  incipit,  vel  coepta  augetur,  vel  amissa 
reparatur."  Concil.  Trid.  Sess.  vii.  Proemium.  "Si  quis  dixerit  sacramenta 
nova?  legis  non  esse  ad  salutem  necessaria;"  "si  quis  dixerit,  per  ipsa  novae  legis 
sacramenta  ex  opere  operato  non  conferri  gratiam,  anathema  sit. "     Ibid.,  iv.  viii. 

^  This  is  the  declaration  of  the  Council  of  Trent  (sess.  vii.  can.  vi.)  :  "Si  quis 
dixerit  sacramenta  novse  legis  non  continere  gratiam,  quam  significat ;  aut  gratiam 
ipsam  non  ponentibus  obicem  non  confere  .  .  .  anathema  sit. "  The  later  School- 
men taught  that  the  Sacraments  are  efficacious,  unless  a  mortal  sin  creates  an 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  working  of  divine  grace.  Duns  Scotus  (1.  iv.  d.  1.  qu.  6) 
says:  "Non  requiritur  ibi  bonus  motus  interior,  qui  mereatur  gratiam,"  etc. 
Gabriel  Biel  (Sententt,  1.  iv.  d.  1.  qu.  3.)  maintains  the  same  proposition.  It  is 
this  tenet  which  the  Reformers  attacked.  After  the  Reformation,  Bellarmine 
says  (De  Sacr.,  ii.  1.)  :  "Voluntas,  fides  et  poenitentia  in  suscipiente  adulto  nec- 
essario  requiruntur  ex  parte  subject!,"  etc.  Mohler  {Symbolik,  c.  iv.  §  28)  re- 
affirms this  last  doctrine.  One  of  the  first  propositions  which  Cajetan  required 
Luther  to  retract  was  :  Non  sacramentum,  sed  fides  in  sacramento  justificat. 
The  modification  of  the  Catholic  representation  on  this  point  since  the  Refor- 
mation, is  referred  to  by  Winer,  Comparative  Darstellung,  p.  126 ;  Hase,  Prot. 
Polemik,  p.  350  seq.  See  also  Nitzsch,  Prot.  Beantwortung  auf  Mohler  (Studien 
11.  Kritiken,  1834,  p.  853).  It  is  still  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  "fides," 
which  Bellarmine  requires  in  the  recipient  of  the  sacrament,  is  not  faith,  in  the 
Protestant  sense,  but  the  assent  to  doctrinal  truth. 

As  to  the  "intention"  in  the  priest  which  is  requisite  to  the  validity  of  the  sac- 
rament, some  make  it  external  —  an  intention  to  do,  as  to  the  outward  form  of  the 


394  THE   REFORMATION 

the  means  of  grace,  and  are  essential  to  the  beginnmg  and 
growth  of  the  Christian  hfe;  they  meet  the  individual  at  his 
birth  and  attend  him  to  his  burial.  They  are  to  the  soul  and 
the  religious  life  what  bread  is  to  the  body;  nor  is  their  effect 
confined  to  the  soul;  it  extends  even  to  the  physical  nature. 
In  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are 
literally  present.  Christ  is  once  more  offered,  an  unbloody  sacri- 
fice, through  which  the  benefits  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  cross  are 
obtained  and  appropriated.  In  the  converted  substance  of  the 
wafer,  the  recipient  actually  partakes  of  the  Redeemer's  body. 
The  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  is  the  central  act  of  worship. 

Of  course  this  conception  of  the  sacraments  presupposes  a 
consecrated  priesthood,  a  hierarchical  order,  which  is  authorized 
to  dispense  them.  They  stand  in  the  position  of  mediators, 
from  whose  hands  the  means  of  salvation  must  be  received ;  by 
whom,  acting  in  a  judicial  capacity,  penances,  or  the  temporal 
punishments  due  to  mortal  sin  after  repentance  and  confession, 
are  appointed;  and  who  have  it  in  their  power  to  pronounce 
against  contumacious  offenders  the  awful  sentence  of  excom- 
munication, which  blots  their  names  out  of  the  book  of  life. 
Between  the  individual  and  Christ  stands  a  fully  organized  self- 
perpetuating  body  of  priests,  through  whose  offices  alone  the 
soul  can  come  into  the  possession  of  the  blessings  of  salvation. 
It  is  true  that  baptism,  without  which  one  cannot  be  saved  — 
unless,  indeed,  the  intention  to  receive  it  is  prevented  from 
being  carried  out,  without  the  candidate 's  fault  —  may  be  per- 
formed by  unconsecrated  hands,  in  emergencies  where  no  priest 
can  be  summoned.  But  the  other  sacraments.  Confirmation, 
the  Lord's  Supper,  the  allotment  of  Penance  and  Absolution, 
Marriage,  Ordination,  Extreme  Unction,  belong  exclusively  to 
the  priest,  and  have  no  validity  unless  performed  by  him.  Stand- 
ing thus,  not  as  a  member  on  a  level  with  the  general  congrega- 
tion of  believers,  but  as  an  intermediate  link  between  the  body 
of  believers  and  God,  the  priest  is  naturally  subject  to  the  rule 

sacrament,  what  the  Church  does;  while  others  make  it  "internal"  —  an  intention 
to  fulfill  the  end  or  design  of  the  sacrament.  The  Council  of  Trent  leaves  the 
point  doubtful.  Sess.  vii.  xi.  Perrone,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  later 
Catholic  theologians,  holds  to  the  necessity  of  the  "internal"  intention.  Prce- 
lectiones  Theolog.,  ii.  118  (p.  232).  This  is  more  commonly  considered  to  be  most 
consonant  with  the  Tridentine  declaration.  Klee,  Dogmengeschichte,  ii.  132. 
Thus  a  secret  intention  of  the  priest  may  deprive  the  recipient  of  the  benefit  of  a 
sacrament. 


PRIESTHOOD   AND   MINISTRY  395 

of  celibacy.    He  stands  aloof  from  the  ordinary  relations  of  this 
earthly  life.^ 

In  direct  opposition  to  this  theory  of  a  sacerdotal  class,  the 
Protestants  maintained  the  doctrine  of  the  universal  priest- 
hood of  believers.  The  laity  stand  in  no  such  dependence  on  a 
priestly  order.  Every  disciple  has  the  right  of  immediate  access 
to  God;  none  can  debar  him  from  a  direct  approach  to  the 
Redeemer.  The  officers  of  the  Church  are  set  apart  among  their 
brethren  for  the  performance  of  certain  duties;  but  the  clergy 
are  not  a  distinct  and  superior  order,  clothed  with  mediatorial 
functions.  The  idea  of  the  direct  relation  of  the  soul  to  Christ, 
which  is  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone, 
and  in  that  of  the  general,  as  opposed  to  a  particular,  priesthood, 
carried  with  it  an  essential  modification  of  the  previous  doctrine 
of  the  sacraments.  The  sufficiency  of  the  sacrifice  once  made 
dispensed  with  such  a  supplement  as  was  sought  in  the  repeated 
sacrifice  of  the  Mass;  and  transubstantiation  was  rejected  as  a 
gross  perversion  of  the  Scriptural  and  primitive  doctrine.  The 
sacraments  were  declared  to  be  but  two  in  number.  Baptism 
and  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  other  five  had  been  added  to  the 
number  without  warrant  of  Scripture.  Of  these,  extreme  unc- 
tion was  set  aside  as  an  unauthorized  superstition.  Marriage 
might  be  concluded  without  the  intervention  of  a  priest.  Pen- 
ances vanished  with  the  doctrine  of  human  merit;  and  auricu- 
lar confession,  instead  of  being  a  duty  owed  to  the  priest,  an 
obligation  to  recount  to  him  all  remembered  sins  of  a  heinous 
character,  was  resolved  into  the  general  privilege  which  disciples 
enjoy,  of  confessing  to  one  another  their  faults,  for  the  purpose 
of  receiving  from  brethren  rebuke,  counsel,  and  comfort.  More- 
over the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments  was  made  dependent  on  the 
spiritual  state  of  the  communicant,  or  the  disposition  with  which 
they  were  received.  Everything  like  a  magical  efficiency  was 
denied  to  them;  without  faith,  the  sacrament  of  the  Supper 
brought  no  benefit.^     But  while  the  Protestants  held  that  the 

'  Neander,  Catholicismus  u.  Protestantismus,  p.  210. 

^  Yet  both  Lutherans  and  Calvinists  held  that  in  the  sacraments  the  outward 
sign  represents  the  inward  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  gives  to  the  sac- 
rament its  efficacy.  Thus  in  the  Conf.  Belgica  (art.  xxxiii.)  it  is  said  of  the  sac- 
raments :  "Per  quae  ceu  media  deus  virtute  spiritus  sancti  in  nobis  operatur."  In 
the  Conf.  Helv.  ii.  (xix.)  it  is  said  of  the  sacraments:  "Signa  et  res  significatse 
inter  se  sacramentaliter  conjunguntur,  conjunguntur,  inquam,  ve  uniuntur  per 
significationem  mysticam  et  voluntatem  vel  consilium  ejus,  qui  sacramenta  con- 
stituit."  See,  also,  Conf.  Angl.,  art.  xxv. ;  Conf.  Gall.,  art.  xxxiv. ;  Cat.  Genev., 
p.  519. 


396  THE   REFORMATION 

validity  and  use  of  the  sacraments  are  not  dependent  on  the 
personal  character  of  the  officiating  minister,  they  also  asserted 
that  they  are  equally  independent  of  his  secret  intention.  They 
recoiled  from  the  doctrine  that  the  priest,  by  a  contrary  inten- 
tion, may  annul  the  effect  of  the  sacraments;  whereby  it  is 
always  left  in  some  degree  uncertain  whether  they  are  in  fact 
received. 

With  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  penance,  or  temporal  punish- 
ments following  upon  the  remission  of  mortal  sin,  the  doctrine 
of  purgatory  also  disappeared,  and  consequently  that  of  the 
lawfulness  or  need  of  prayers  for  the  dead.  The  invocation  of 
the  Virgin  and  of  the  saints  was  connected  with  ideas  concern- 
ing the  character  of  Christ  which  were  at  variance  with  the 
Protestant  conception  of  his  compassionate  feeling  and  mediato- 
rial relation;  and  such  practices  disappeared,  almost  of  them- 
selves. It  is  only  in  recent  times  that  the  immaculate 
conception  of  the  Virgin  has  been  proclaimed  as  a  dogma;  but 
the  cultus  of  Mary,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  especially  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Franciscans,  had  been  carried  to  a  portentous 
height ;  and  this  exalted  service  offered  to  the  mother  of  Jesus  the 
Reformers  discarded.  The  worship  of  images,  or  that  homage  to 
images  which  the  Catholic  theology  permits,  and  the  veneration 
of  the  relics  of  saints,  vanished  with  the  worship  of  the  saints 
themselves,  and  was  renounced  likewise  as  a  species  of  idolatry, 
or  as  involving  a  temptation  to  an  idolatrous  service.  Pil- 
grimages and  a  great  variety  of  ascetic  usages  were  given  up 
from  their  perceived  inconsistency  with  the  Protestant  doctrine 
of  justification,  and  of  the  liberty  from  ceremonial  ordinances 
which  is  a  corollary  of  that  doctrine.  It  is  a  striking  proof  that 
the  central  principle  of  Protestantism  is  logically  inconsistent 
with  these  practices,  that  they  dropped  off  from  the  system  of 
worship  without  any  struggle  in  behalf  of  them,  wherever  that 
principle  was  intelligently  received  and  professed.  Monasti- 
cism,  together  with  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  as  a  compulsory 
rule,  shared  the  same  fate  and  on  the  same  ground.  As  the 
Catholic  theology  made  a  distinction  between  mortal  and  venial 
sins,  presenting  thus  a  quantitative  rather  than  a  qualitative 
standard  of  conduct,  which  Protestantism  rejected,  so  that  the- 
ology made  a  distinction  between  two  types  of  Christian  char- 
acter, the  one  being  a  salvabie  degree  of  excellence,  such  as  is 


DOCTRINES   REJECTED   BY    PROTESTANTS  397 

gained  by  complying  with  the  commandments  of  the  Gospel, 
the  other  being  the  more  exalted  type  of  excellence,  which  is 
reached  through  compliance  with  the  counsels  or  recommenda- 
tions of  the  Gospel.  On  this  distinction  was  founded  the  mo- 
nastic system,  with  its  three  vows  of  poverty,  chastity  (including 
celibacy),  and  obedience.  The  Protestants  rejected  the  distinc- 
tion as  belonging  to  a  legal  system  at  war  with  the  spirit  of 
Christian  ethics,  where  the  fundamental  characteristic  is  not 
obedience  to  that  which  is  exacted,  but  a  free  and  willing  and 
grateful  self-consecration;  where  the  question  is  not  "how 
much  must  I,"  but  "how  much  can  I"  do  for  the  Saviour?  For 
this  reason  they  cast  away  also  the  rule  of  celibacy  for  the  clergy, 
and  for  the  additional  reasons  that  it  was  one  of  the  artificial 
barriers  which  had  been  set  up  to  give  a  greater  sanctity  to  the 
priesthood  than  of  right  belongs  to  the  Christian  ministry ;  that 
it  puts  a  stigma  upon  the  marriage  institution;  and  that  it  had 
proved  a  source  of  corruption  in  the  Church.  Works  of  super- 
erogation and  the  idea  of  a  treasury  of  supererogatory  merits  of 
saints  were  cast  away,  as  human  inventions,  which  had  sprung 
out  of  an  eclipse  of  the  truth  that  the  merits  of  Christ  are  the 
sole  and  sufficient  ground  of  salvation.  With  the  abrogation  of 
penances,  and  with  the  denial  of  purgatory,  there  was  no  room 
left  for  indulgences  or  for  absolution,  considered  as  a  judicial 
act  of  the  priest.  Absolution,  where  it  was  retained  by  the  Prot- 
estants, was  a  declaration  of  the  forgiveness  of  the  Gospel,  not 
to  an  individual  by  himself,  but  to  the  assembly  of  believers, 
and  was  founded  on  a  general  not  a  detailed,  on  a  common,  not 
an  auricular  or  private,  confession  of  sin. 

Of  the  theological  divisions  among  the  Protestants,  the  earli- 
est and  most  noteworthy  was  the  Sacramentarian  controversy 
between  the  Lutherans  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Zwinglians 
first,  and  then  the  Calvinists,  on  the  other;  the  controversy 
that  raged  in  the  first  age  of  the  Reformation.  This  has 
been  described  in  preceding  pages.  The  Arminian  controversy, 
which  is,  perhaps,  next  in  importance,  related  to  the  subject 
of  predestination,  and  arose  towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  Reformers  had  followed  Augustine  in  the 
assertion  of  unconditional  predestination  and  election,  which 
they  assumed  to  be  the  correlate  of  salvation  by  grace  alone. 
By  Beza,  the  pupil  of  Calvin,  who  succeeded  him  at  Geneva, 


398  THE   REFOR>L\TION 

this  doctrine  was  taught  in  the  extreme,  or  what  was  called 
the  supra-lapsarian  form.  Cahin,  to  say  the  least,  had  not 
uniformly  inculcated  this  phase  of  the  doctrine,  according  to 
which  the  first  sin  of  man  is  the  object  of  an  efficient  decree; 
the  salvation  of  some  and  the  condemnation  of  others  being 
the  supreme  end  in  reference  to  which  all  the  rest  of  the  di\'ine 
decrees  are  subordinate.  But  this  t^'pe  of  doctrine  spread  ex- 
tensively in  the  Reformed  or  Cahloistic  branch  of  the  Protestant 
Church.  The  followers  of  Melancthon  adapted  the  doctrine 
of  conditional  predestination,  in  the  room  of  the  Augustin- 
ian  view,  and  the  Lutherans  at  length  practically  acquiesced 
in  the  same  opinion.  In  Holland,  therefore,  where  the  Lu- 
theran teaching  was  early  introduced,  there  had  been,  before 
the  time  of  Arminius,  more  or  less  dissent  from  the  Cahnnistic 
dogma.  But  this  dissent  first  acquired  strength  through  his 
influence.  James  Arminius,  born  at  Oudewater,  in  1560,  was 
one  of  the  most  learned  and  accomplished  theologians  of  the 
times.  He  studied  at  the  University  of  Leyden,  but  received 
his  education  principally  at  Geneva,  where  he  was  under  the 
instruction  of  Beza.  After  travehng  in  Italy,  he  returned  to 
his  native  country*,  and  in  1603  became  Professor  of  Theolog\' 
at  Leyden,  and  a  colleague  of  Gomarus,  a  strenuous  advocate 
of  the  supra-lapsarian  theory.  This  \'iew  Arminius  had  been 
called  upon  to  defend  against  the  preachers  of  Delft,  who  had 
avowed  their  adhesion  to  the  milder,  or  infra-lapsarian  form 
of  the  doctrine,  according  to  which  election  has  respect  to  men 
already  fallen  into  a  state  of  sin.  But  in  the  examination  of 
the  subject,  into  which  Arminius  was  thus  led,  he  came  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  opinion  which  he  was  set  to  oppose,  and  at 
length  to  go  beyond  it,  and  reject  unconditional  election  alto- 
gether. In  short,  he  gave  up  what  had  come  to  be  considered 
the  characteristic  dogma  of  Cahinism.  A  dispute  arose  be- 
tween him  and  Gomarus,  and  the  debate  spread  through 
Holland.  Episcopius.  the  learned  successor  of  Arminius  at 
Leyden,  and  U>i:enbogaert.  who  had  been  a  fellow-pupil  of  the 
former  at  Geneva,  became  the  leaders  of  the  party  which  the 
movement  of  Arminius  had  called  into  being.  The  main  pecul- 
iarities of  their  creed  were  contained  in  the  Remonstrance  — 
which  gave  the  name  of  Remonstrants  to  the  party  —  that 
was  addressed  to  the  states  of  Holland  and  West  Friesland 


THE   SYSTEM   OF   ARMINIUS  399 

in  1610.  This  document  embraces  five  points,  namely,  Elec- 
tion based  on  the  foreknowledge  of  faith,  universal  Atonement, 
in  the  room  of  Atonement  made  for  the  elect  only,  the  resisti- 
bility  of  Grace,  in  connection  with  the  need  of  Regeneration 
by  the  Spirit,  and  the  doubtfulness  of  the  Calvinistic  tenet  of 
the  perseverance  of  all  believers. 

A  great  political  Une  of  division  was  also  run  between  the 
two  theological  parties.  The  Arminians  were  Republicans, 
and  in  favor  of  a  closer  union  of  Church  and  State,  or  a  partial 
control  of  the  State  over  the  Church.  The  Calvinists  adhered 
to  the  house  of  Orange,  and  were  for  the  independence  of  the 
Church  in  relation  to  the  State.  In  the  progress  of  the  conflict, 
Olden  Barneveldt  was  beheaded,  and  Grotius,  the  illustrious 
ornament  of  the  Arminian  party,  was  banished.  The  Synod 
of  Dort  was  assembled,  in  1618,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  judg- 
ment upon  this  theological  controversy.  While  this  Synod 
decUned  to  give  an  express  sanction  to  the  supra-lapsarian 
views  of  Gomarus,  it  declared  its  judgment  in  opposition  to  the 
Arminians  on  all  the  characteristic  points  of  their  system, 
and  put  forth,  by  way  of  antithesis,  what  have  been  called  the 
five  points  of  high  Calvinism:  unconditional  election;  limited 
atonement  (designed  for  the  elect  alone) ;  the  complete  im- 
potency  of  the  fallen  will;  irresistible  grace;  and  the  perse- 
verance of  believers.  The  Arminians  introduced  into  their 
theology  other  deviations  from  the  current  system.  In  par- 
ticular, they  modified  the  accepted  doctrine  of  Original  Sin,  ex- 
cluding native  guilt  in  the  literal  and  proper  sense  of  the  term; 
and  through  the  celebrated  treatise  of  Grotius  in  answer  to 
Socinus,  and  in  the  writings  of  other  eminent  theologians  of 
the  party,  they  substituted  for  the  Anselmic  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  what  has  been   termed   the  governmental  view.* 

'  Grotius  meets  the  objections  of  Socinas  by  denying  that  atonement  or  satis- 
faction is  the  payment  of  a  debt.  The  ruler  is  at  Hberty  to  pardon,  provided 
public  order  is  not  endangered.  The  end  of  punishment  is  the  prevention  of 
future  transgressions,  or  the  security  of  the  commonwealth.  The  death  of  Christ, 
in  its  moral  effect,  as  a  means  to  this  end,  is  equivalent  to  the  legal  penalty,  since 
it  equally  manifests  God's  hatred  of  sin.  Hence  it  permits  the  ruler  to  pardon, 
on  such  conditions  as  he  may  judge  it  wise  to  impose.  The  seeds  of  the  Grotian 
doctrine  are  in  the  Scotist  theology,  which  affirmed  that  the  atonement  is  not 
intrinsically  the  equivalent  of  the  penalty,  but  takes  its  place  by  the  divine  accept- 
ance or  consent  (acceptilatio) ;  though  Grotius,  on  verbal  and  technical  grounds, 
repudiates  this  term.  Defensio  Fidei  Cathol.  de  Satis} actione  Christi  adv.  F. 
Socinum  (1617).     Grotii  Opera,  iv.  297. 


400  THE   REFORMATION 

The  Arminian  party,  from  the  outset,  cultivated  Biblical  studies 
with  an  earnest,  scholarly  spirit,  and  made  important  contri- 
butions in  this  branch  of  theological  science.  They  were 
marked,  partly  as  a  natural  consequence  of  the  position  of  their . 
party  and  of  the  persecution  to  which  they  were  subject,  by  a 
Uberal  and  tolerant  disposition.  They  were  in  favor  of  reduc- 
ing the  doctrinal  tests  at  the  foundation  of  Christian  union 
to  the  briefest  possible  compass.  Indeed,  a  comparative  in- 
difference in  respect  to  creeds,  or  a  low  estimate  of  their  value, 
was  one  of  their  characteristic  traits.  The  Arminian  theology, 
besides  the  progress  which  it  made  in  the  country  where  it  had 
its  origin,  by  degrees  supplanted  Calvinism,  for  the  most  part, 
in  the  English  Episcopal  Church.  It  was  adopted  substan- 
tially by  John  Wesley,  the  principal  founder  of  Methodism,  and 
in  this  way  won  a  numerous  and  powerful  body  of  adherents. 

In  the  ferment  of  thought  and  discussion  which  was  pro- 
duced by  the  Protestant  movement,  a  new  impetus,  as  well 
as  hberty,  was  given  to  speculation.  Slumbering  tendencies 
of  opinion  were  awakened  to  fresh  Hfe,  and  new  sects  sprang  up, 
which  were  equally  dissatisfied  with  the  old  Church  and  with 
the  position  taken  by  the  Reformers. 

Among  the  advocates  of  more  radical  changes  who  con- 
sidered that  the  Protestant  leaders  had  stopped  halfway  in 
their  work,  is  that  numerous  and  widely  scattered  class,  which 
comprehended  under  itself  many  subordinate  divisions,  but 
which  was  known  by  the  name  of  Anabaptists.^  They  received 
this  title  from  their  rejection,  in  common,  of  the  baptism  of 
infants,  and  from  their  insisting  that  those  who  joined  them 
should  be  baptized  anew.  One  prevailing  feature  of  their 
system  was  a  belief  in  immediate  or  prophetic  inspiration, 
which,  if  it  did  not  supersede  the  written  Word,  assimilated 
them  to  its  authors.  This  was  the  position  of  the  prophets 
who  stirred  up  the  commotion  at  Wittenberg,  while  Luther 
was  at  the  Wartburg,  and  who  gained  over  Carlstadt  to  their 
cause.  One  consequence  of  this  form  of  enthusiasm  was  a 
contempt  for  human  learning  and  for  study.  The  immediate 
teaching  of  the  Spirit  renders  the  laborious  exertions  of  the 
intellect  superfluous.    Another  of  their  tenets  was  a  belief  in 

»  Erbkam,  Geschichte  d.  prot.  Sekten  im.  Zeitalt.  d.  Ref.  (1848).  Domer,  Hist. 
of  Prot.  Theology,  i.   125. 


THE   ANABAPTISTS  401 

the  visible  kingdom  of  Christ,  which  was  to  be  erected  on  the 
ruins  of  Church  and  State.  In  some  cases  they  held  that  tem- 
poral rule  belongs  to  the  saints  alone,  and  carried  out  their 
fanatical  theory  by  seizing  on  the  city  of  Miinster  and  dispos- 
sessing the  magistrates.  Sometimes  their  conduct  was  marked 
by  an  ascetic  morality,  and  sometimes  by  licentious  maxims 
and  practices  —  opposite  phenomena  which  frequently  coexist 
in  sects  of  this  nature.  They  appear  to  have  generally  held  a 
peculiar  notion  about  the  Incarnation;  that  the  body  of  Christ 
is  not  formed  from  that  of  the  Virgin,  is  different  from  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  other  men,  and  was  deified  at  the  Ascension.  Such 
a  doctrine  was  held  by  Jean  Boucher,  who  was  put  to  death 
in  England,  after  being  examined  by  Cranmer.  Such  was  the 
opinion  also  of  the  mystic,  Caspar  Schwenkfeld,  a  German 
nobleman  of  pious  and  zealous  character,  a  leader  of  one  of 
the  most  worthy  of  the  Anabaptist  sects,  who  died  not  far  from 
1561.  It  was  in  Holland  that  the  Anabaptists  were  most  nu- 
merous. Many  of  them  were  guilty  of  extravagances  which 
afforded  a  fair  pretext,  though  no  just  apology,  for  treating 
them  with  extreme  severity.  After  the  disturbances  connected 
with  the  seizure  of  Miinster,  the  more  sober  class  of  Anabap- 
tists found  a  leader  in  the  person  of  Menno,  who  traveled  from 
place  to  place  and  organized  them  into  churches.  They  were 
a  simple  and  honest  people,  aiming  to  shape  their  lives  accord- 
ing to  the  precepts  of  the  Bible,  discarding  infant  baptism, 
the  oath,  and  the  use  of  arms,  admitting  that  ci\dl  magistrates 
are  necessary  in  the  present  condition  of  the  world,  but  refus- 
ing for  themselves  to  hold  ci\'il  office.  Between  the  followers 
of  Miinzer,  who  entered  into  the  rebellion  called  the  Peasants' 
war,  in  whom  a  reUgious  enthusiasm  which  had  been  kindled 
partly  by  the  Lutheran  movement  was  mingled  with  the  desire 
to  deUver  themselves  from  the  oppression  of  the  German  princes 
—  between  these  enthusiasts  and  the  humble  and  pious  Men- 
nonites  of  the  Netherlands,  who  abjured  the  use  of  force  alto- 
gether, there  was  a  very  wide  difference;  and  yet  both  were 
branches  from  a  common  stock.  Both  w^re  fruits  of  a  widely 
diffused  religious  excitement,  which,  in  its  diverse  phases,  re- 
tained certain  common  characteristics. 

Very  different  in  many  of  their  traits,  and  yet  curiously 
connected  w^th  the  Anabaptists,  were   the  Antitrinitarians  of 


402  THE   REFORMATION 

the  age  of  the  Reformation.*  It  was  in  Italy,  among  the  cul- 
tured class,  in  men  of  inquisitive  and  cultivated  minds,  that  the 
Antitrinitarians  appeared.  The  pecuhar  tone  of  the  belles- 
lettres  culture  that  followed  upon  the  revival  of  learning  was 
often  congenial  with  these  new  opinions.  There  was  a  dis- 
position to  examine  the  foundations  of  religion,  to  call  in  ques- 
tion the  traditional  doctrines  of  the  Church,  and  to  sift  the 
entire  creed  by  the  appUcation  of  reason  to  its  contents.  The 
writings  of  Servetus  doubtless  had  much  influence  in  diffusing 
antitrinitarian  opinions;  but  most  of  the  conspicuous  Uni- 
tarians who  first  appear  are  of  Italian  birth;  generally  exiles 
from  their  country  on  account  of  their  behef .  After  the  publi- 
cation of  the  antitrinitarian  work  of  Servetus,  in  1531,  it  is 
said  that  not  less  than  forty  educated  men  in  Vicenza  and  the 
neighborhood  were  united  in  a  private  association,  all  of  whom 
held  Unitarian  opinions.  The  Unitarian  doctrine  was  found 
in  the  churches  of  ItaUan  refugees  at  Geneva  and  at  Zurich. 
Blandrata,  a  learned  physician  and  afterwards  an  influential 
propagator  of  Unitarianism  in  Poland  and  elsewhere,  was  their 
leading  adherent  at  the  former  place;  while  at  Zurich  the  emi- 
nent preacher,  Bernardino  Ochino,  embraced  the  same  theology. 
GentiU  was  put  to  death  in  Berne  in  1566  for  his  opinions. 
Alciati,  an  associate  of  Blandrata  at  Geneva,  found  an  asylum 
in  Poland.  But  the  most  eminent  of  this  class  of  men,  and  the 
one  who  gave  a  name  to  the  adherents  of  Unitarianism,  was 
Faustus  Socinus.  Born  of  a  noble  family  at  Siena,  in  1539, 
and  endued  with  uncommon  talents,  he  devoted  himself  first 
to  the  study  of  law.  He  had  been  left  an  orphan,  and  his  edu- 
cation had  been  negligently  conducted.  He  soon  manifested 
an  interest  in  theology,  and  was  guided  by  the  letters  and  con- 
versations of  his  uncle,  Lselius  Socinus,  a  man  of  an  inquiring 
mind,  versed  in  classical  learning,  who  sought  the  society  of 
the  Reformers  in  various  countries,  and  cautiously  betrayed 
his  predilection  for  Unitarian  tenets.  The  persecution  to  which 
his  family  were  exposed  compelled  Faustus  to  leave  Italy. 
After  spending  three  years  in  Lyons,  he  went  to  Zurich  to  take 
possession  of  the  manuscripts  of  his  deceased  uncle,  which, 
though  consisting  of  fragmentary  papers,  furnished  him  with 

*  F.  Trechsel,  Die  prot.  Antiirinitarier  vor  F.  Socin.  (1839  and  1844).     Fock, 
Der  Sodnianismtis  (1847). 


THE  ANTITRINITARIANS  403 

hints  and  observations  of  much  value.  For  twelve  years  he 
resided  at  the  court  of  Francis  de  Medici  at  Florence,  and  en- 
joyed high  honors  and  favors,  but  was  drawn  away  from  the 
study  of  theology  to  which  he  was  strongly  inclined.  Leaving 
Florence,  he  spent  four  years  in  Basel,  where  he  labored  on  his 
theological  system,  and  diffused  his  opinions  by  conversation 
and  by  his  writings.  At  length  he  resorted  to  Poland  (1579), 
where  the  remainder  of  his  hfe  was  spent.  At  first  he  was 
not  received  by  the  Unitarians  into  their  church,  because  he 
refused  to  be  rebaptized.  His  own  view  was  that  Christian 
baptism  was  intended  only  for  converts  from  heathenism. 
But  the  PoUsh  Unitarians,  like  their  brethren  in  Italy  and  like 
Servetus,  were  opposed  to  the  practice  of  infant  baptism.  So- 
cinus  finally  succeeded  in  impressing  his  views  upon  the  Uni- 
tarians about  him,  and  took  the  post,  for  which  his  talents 
fitted  him,  of  an  acknowledged  leader.  His  intellectual  power 
and  his  poHshed  manners  commended  him  to  the  favor  of  the 
Polish  nobles ;  and  his  influence  was  augmented  by  his  marriage 
with  a  daughter  of  one  of  them.  By  Socinus  and  by  the  scholars 
who  were  trained  in  the  PoUsh  schools,  of  whom  Crell  is  the 
most  distinguished,  the  Unitarian  system  of  doctrine  was  ably 
stated  and  defended.  LseHus  Socinus,  from  whom  Faustus 
derived  his  fundamental  principles,  had  too  much  general  rever- 
ence for  religion  to  be  satisfied  with  the  Deism  and  Atheism 
which  were  so  common  among  cultivated  ItaHans  about  him. 
But  he  first  studied  the  Bible  to  find  principles  which  he  could 
place  at  the  foundation  of  a  system  of  jurisprudence.  There 
was  no  definite  center  from  which  his  religious  life  emanated; 
no  crisis  of  religious  experience.  He  resorted  to  the  Scriptures 
as  a  text-book  of  revealed  doctrine,  and  brought  to  their  inter- 
pretation the  rationahstic  temper  which  was  the  natural  result 
of  his  studies  and  associations.  Hence  his  supernaturahsm 
stood  in  no  vital  connection  with  his  inward  Ufe,  and  was  there- 
fore something,  as  it  were,  apart,  having  no  hving  roots  within 
the  soul.^    It  seems  at  first  remarkable,  and  yet  it  is  character- 

•  Neander,  Dogmengeschichte,  ii.  220  seq.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  how 
the  type  of  theology,  the  interpretation  of  the  Gospel,  varies  according  as  men 
have,  or  have  not,  a  definite  center  of  religious  life,  a  crisis  or  turning-point ;  such, 
for  example,  as  Luther  had.  This  diversity  may  be  seen  where  there  is  no  real 
discrepancy  in  doctrine ;  even  in  the  Apostolic  age,  between  Paul  and  the  dis- 
ciples who  were  subject  to  a  gradual  training.  It  appears,  in  some  degree,  in  the 
contrast  between  Zwingli  and  the  other  great  Reformers,  Luther  and  Calvin.     It 


404  THE   REFORMATION 

istic  of  the  Socinian  tone  of  thought,  that  supernaturahsm  was 
pushed  to  an  extreme;  that  the  arguments  of  natural  rehgion, 
even  for  the  being  of  God,  were  held  in  light  esteem,  and  Reve- 
lation was  declared  to  be  the  source  of  our  knowledge,  even  in 
the  case  of  the  first  truths  of  religion.  Revelation,  it  was  held, 
may  contain  things  above  reason,  but  nothing  contrary  to 
reason;  and  this  canon  was  so  applied  to  the  interpretation  of 
the  Bible,  that  various  doctrines,  especially  the  Trinity,  were 
excluded  on  the  ground  of  their  alleged  inconsistency  with  in- 
tuitive knowledge.  The  prime  characteristic  of  the  Socinian 
theology  was  the  denial  of  the  divinity  and  satisfaction  of 
Christ.  He  is  a  teacher  and  legislator,  the  appointed  head  of 
a  spiritual  kingdom;  but  while  his  prophetic  and  kingly  offices 
are  held,  his  priestly  or  expiatory  function  is  denied,  or  it  is 
limited  to  the  work  of  intercessory  supplication.  The  church 
doctrine  of  original  sin  is  materially  modified.  The  image  of 
God  in  man  is  said  to  be  identical  with  his  dominion  over  the 
lower  orders  of  creation,  and  the  effect  of  the  first  sin  is  made 
to  be  the  propagation  of  physical  mortality.  The  doctrine  of 
the  annihilation  of  the  wicked  is  substituted  for  that  of  eternal 
punishment.  The  separation  of  ethics  from  religion,  the  dis- 
junction of  ethical  character  from  Christian  faith,  was  a  char- 
acteristic tendency  of  the  Socinian  type  of  thinking,  and  a 
corollary  of  the  extreme,  but  one-sided  supernaturahsm,  to 
which  we  have  adverted.  The  logical  and  exegetical  ability 
of  the  Socinian  leaders  gave  a  wide  currency  to  their  doctrine. 
When  persecution  arose  against  the  Unitarians  of  Poland,  in 
consequence  of  the  Catholic  Reaction  and  the  acts  of  the  Jesuits, 
many  fled  into  Holland,  and  came  into  friendly  relations  with  the 
Arminians.  Some  also  joined  the  churches  of  the  Mennonites. 
It  was  the  ingenious  and  formidable  attack  of  Faustus  Socinus 
upon  the  Anselmic  theory  of  the  Atonement,  which  gave  rise  to 
the  treatise  of  Grotius,  and  indirectly  occasioned  a  modification 
of  the  orthodox  doctrine  which  has  found  a  wide  acceptance. 

The  difference  between  the  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic  creeds 
was  not  so  great  as  to  preclude  efforts  to  unite  the  two  parties.* 

is  still  more  marked  in  its  consequences  in  Erasmus  and  in  many  of  the  learned 
Arminians  of  Holland,  when  compared  with  their  opponents.  In  the  Socinians 
this  difference  in  theology,  having  its  source  in  the  peculiarities  of  religious  expe- 
rience,  reached  its  climax. 

'  The  Form  of  Concord  (1580,  Hase,  p.  570)  sets  forth  the  Lutheran  theology, 


EFFORTS   FOR   UNION  405 

The  chief  hindrance  to  their  success  was  the  intolerant  preju- 
dice of  strict  Lutherans,  especially  after  their  triumph  over 
the  Philippists,  the  adherents  of  the  milder  theology  of  Me- 
lancthon.  The  abandonment  of  Lutheranism  by  several  of  the 
German  states,  among  which  was  the  Palatinate,  and  the  op- 
pression to  which  Lutheran  preachers  were  sometimes  subject, 
in  consequence  of  the  adoption  of  Calvinism  by  their  rulers, 
embittered  the  opposition  to  a  union.  Earnest  and  long- 
continued  efforts  in  this  direction  were  made,  from  the  early 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  by  the  theologians  of  Helm- 
stadt,  of  whom  Calixtus  was  the  most  eminent/  The  Hugue- 
not Synods  of  France  were  distinguished  for  their  liberal  and 
friendly  course  in  reference  to  negotiations  with  the  Lutherans. 
Projects  for  the  reunion  of  the  entire  body  of  Protestants 
with  the  Roman  Catholics  met  with  no  better  success.^  On 
various  occasions,  as  at  Augsburg,  in  1530,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  Diet,  in  the  Conference  at  Ratisbon,  and  in  the  Augsburg 
Interim,  the  Catholics  had  evinced  a  disposition  to  make  con- 
cessions. The  Emperor  Ferdinand  I.  recommended  concilia- 
tory measures  to  the  Council  of  Trent  in  1562;  and,  failing  in 
his  purpose,  he  encouraged  the  theologians  near  him,  in  par- 
ticular George  Cassander,  by  their  writings  and  personal  inter- 
course with  leading  Protestants,  in  different  countries,  to  labor 
for  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  contending  parties.  The 
position  of  Erasmus  that  the  creed  should  be  confined  to  fun- 
damental articles,  and  that  no  agreement  should  be  required 
on  matters  of  less  moment,  was  substantially  taken  by  most 
of  the  advocates  of  reunion.  Cassander  proposed  to  go  back 
to  the  Scriptures,  and  to  the  Church  of  the  first  five  centuries. 
Calixtus  adopted  the  same  principle.  Irenical  movements  of 
this  character  are  specially  interesting  from  the  part  that  was 

in  opposition  to  the  system  of  Melancthon,  and  in  contrast  with  Calvinism.  It 
denies  Synergism  and  all  power  in  man  to  cooperate  in  his  conversion ;  but  it  also 
denies  irresistible  grace,  attributes  the  rejection  of  Christ  to  the  resistance  of  man 
to  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  affirms  the  universality  of  the  offers  of  the  Gospel.  Every- 
thing like  Reprobation  is  excluded.  This  logically  amounts  to  conditional  pre- 
destination, which  was  really  the  Lutheran  doctrine  in  the  17th  century.  This  was 
the  first  point  of  difference  with  the  Calvinists.  The  other  points  were  the  Lu- 
theran "Consubstantiation,"  with  which  were  connected  the  communication  of 
divine  attributes  to  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  and  the  ubiquity  of  his  body ; 
together  with  the  use  of  pictures  and  other  minor  peculiarities  of  the  ritual. 

*  For  an  account  of  these  successive  efforts,  see  Hering,  Gsch.  d.  kirchl.  Unions- 
versuche  sett  d.  Ref.  (2  vols.),  1836.  Niedner,  pp.  787,  819  seq.  Gieseler,  iv.  iii. 
c.  1.  i.  2  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  2,  iii.  §§  51,  52. 


406  THE   REFORMATION 

taken  in  them  by  two  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  Protestant  body, 
Grotius  and  Leibnitz.  The  latitudinarian  tendency  of  Eras- 
mus, and  the  concihatory  spirit  and  opinions  of  Melancthon 
once  more  found  strong  representatives.  The  persecution  which 
Grotius  suffered  at  the  hands  of  his  Protestant  brethren, 
the  Calvinists  of  Holland;  his  observation  of  the  rigid  attach- 
ment of  the  Protestant  sects  to  minor  peculiarities  of  doctrine 
and  their  bitter  theological  strife  among  themselves;  his  sorrow 
at  the  distracted  condition  of  Europe  in  the  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  at  the  calamities  resulting  from  the 
wars  of  religion,  inclined  him  to  set  a  high  value  upon  the  res- 
toration of  ecclesiastical  unity.  His  intercourse  with  moderate 
and  enlightened  Catholics  in  France  confirmed  this  disposition. 
The  difTerences  among  Christians  appeared  to  him  small  in 
comparison  with  the  points  on  which  they  were  united.  The 
tendencies  of  thought  peculiar  to  him  as  a  statesman,  a  scholar, 
and  a  theologian  conspired  to  make  him  an  advocate  of  com- 
promise and  union  among  ecclesiastical  parties.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  now  he  was  charged  with  Socinianism,  and  now 
accused  of  being  a  Roman  Catholic.  He  employed  his  vast 
erudition  in  the  endeavor  to  soften  Protestant  antipathies  to 
the  Catholic  Church  and  its  doctrines.  He  wrote  a  treatise 
to  prove  that  the  Pope  was  called  Antichrist  through  a  mis- 
interpretation of  the  Apocalypse.^  In  this  and  in  other  pub- 
lications, he  assumed  the  position  of  an  apologist  for  the  Catholic 
theology.^  In  his  idealized  interpretation  he  finds  it  possible 
even  to  accept  transubstantiation ;  he  does  not  consider  the 
use  of  images  in  worship  absolutely  unlawful,  although  he 
regrets  the  abuses  connected  with  it ; '  he  thinks  that  the  invo- 

»  Grotii  Opera  (Basel,  1732),  iv.  457  seq. 

*  Votum  pro  Pace  eccl.  contra  examen  A.  Riveti,  Ibid.,  p.  653,  Via  ad  Pacem 
eccl.,  Ibid.,  p.  535,  etc. 

*  He  denies  the  universal  validity  of  the  Decalogue  under  the  new  dispensa- 
tion. He  appeals  to  the  commandment  respecting  the  Sabbath,  which  Luther, 
Calvin,  Melancthon,  Zwingli,  and  the  other  Reformers,  united  in  denying  to  be 
so  far  obligatory  that  the  observance  of  one  day  in  seven  is,  on  the  ground  of  it, 
required  of  Christians.  Calvin,  Institutes,  ii.  8,  29,  34.  Luther,  Catechismus  major, 
in  Hase,  Libri  Symbolici,  p.  424.  Melancthon,  Loci  Communes  (Erlangen,  1828), 
pp.  123,  124.  Zwingli  thinks  it  better  to  mow,  cut,  hew,  or  to  do  other  necessary 
work  which  the  season  demands,  after  divine  worship,  than  to  be  idle;  "for  the 
believer  is  above  the  Sabbath."  Werke,  i.  317.  Such  work  is  recommended  in 
the  acts  of  the  Synod  of  Homberg,  in  Hesse,  on  the  same  grounds.  Hassenkamp, 
Leben  F.  Lamberts,  p.  42.  The  Puritans  asserted  the  perpetual  validity  of  the 
fourth  commandment,  only  that  the  day  is  changed  by  divine  authority.  On  the 
history  of  the  observance  of  Sunday,  see  Hesse,  Bampton  Lectures  (1860).  Hallam, 
Const.  Hist.,  ch.  vii. 


EFFORTS   FOR  UNION  407 

cation  of  saints  and  prayers  for  the  dead  are  not  inadmissible; 
and  finds  great  advantages  in  episcopal  government  and  in 
the  primacy  of  the  Pope.  Even  the  interference  of  the  Popes 
with  the  election  of  Emperors  has  a  ground  in  the  fact  that 
the  Popes  may  be  considered  the  representatives  of  the  Roman 
people.  Grotius  gives  a  place  to  tradition  in  the  exegesis  of 
Scripture.  His  real  position  is  that  the  propositions  on  which 
all  Christians  can  unite  are  to  be  ascertained  by  a  universal 
council,  composed  of  all  parties,  and  that  the  conclusions  of 
such  a  council  are  trustworthy.  The  canon  of  Vincent  of 
Lerins  —  that  what  is  accepted  always,  everywhere,  and  by 
all,  is  Catholic  truth  —  is  laid  hold  of  by  Grotius  to  serve  as 
a  basis  for  his  scheme  of  comprehension  and  latitudinarian 
orthodoxy.^ 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Spinola, 
another  theologian  from  the  Court  of  Vienna,  who  had  been  a 
Franciscan  General  in  Spain,  signalized  himself  by  a  pacific 
undertaking  similar  to  that  of  Cassander.  In  the  course  of  his 
labors  at  the  Hanoverian  court,  in  behalf  of  syncretism,  as  the 
projected  union  of  the  diverse  religious  bodies  was  termed,  he 
had  much  intercourse  with  the  Lutheran  theologian,  Molanus; 
and  a  correspondence  arose  between  Molanus,  and  after- 
wards, Leibnitz,  on  the  one  side,  and  Bossuet  on  the  other.^ 
Leibnitz  conducted  a  long  correspondence  also,  much  of  which 
relates  to  the  same  subject,  with  the  Landgrave  Ernest,  of 
Hesse-Rheinfels,  who  had  gone  over  to  the  Catholic  Church  in 
1652.^  The  position  taken  by  Leibnitz  closely  resembles  that 
of  Grotius.  Each  brought  vast  stores  of  learning,  and  a 
marvelous  outlay  of  philosophical  acuteness  to  the  task  of 
harmonizing  conflicting  dogmas.  Leibnitz  found  the  dogma  of 
transubstantiation  harder  to  deal  with  than  any  other  article 
of  the  opposing  creed;  but  in  the  alembic  of  his  subtle  criti- 
cism, discordant  opinions  were  made  to  assume  a  likeness  to  one 
another.     He  lays  great  stress  on  the  foundations  of  rehgion, 


*  That  Grotius  died,  as  he  had  lived,  in  the  Protestant  Church,  is  proved,  if 
proof  were  necessary,  by  the  narrative  of  the  Lutheran  clergyman  who  attended 
him  in  his  last  hours.  See  Bayle's  Dictionary,  art.  "Grotius  "  ;  and  Luden,  Hugo 
Grotius  nach  seinen  Schicksalen  u.  Schriften  (Berlin,  1806),  p.  338  seq. 

^  Von  Rommel,  Leibnitz  u.  Landgraf  Ernst  von  Hessen-Rheinfels.  Ein  unge- 
druckter  Briefwechsel,  etc.     2  vols.  (Frankfort,  1847). 

^  On  the  part  taken  by  Leibnitz,  see  Hering,  ii.  276  seq. 


408  THE   REFORMATION 

and  declares  that  the  question  whether  the  love  of  God  is 
necessary  for  salvation,  is  incomparably  more  important  than 
the  question  whether  the  substance  of  the  bread  remains  in  the 
Eucharist,  or  the  question  whether  souls  must  be  purified  be- 
fore being  admitted  to  the  vision  of  God.  The  questions  in 
dispute  between  Rome  and  Augsburg  he  affirms  to  be  of  less 
consequence  than  the  points  in  debate  between  the  Jansenists 
and  their  opponents,  within  the  pale  of  the  Catholic  Church/ 
He  went  so  far  as  to  admit  the  rightful  primacy  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome,  and  he  professed  himself  to  stand  in  an  inward  con- 
nection, though  not  in  external  union,  with  the  Roman  Church.^ 
But  in  reply  to  pressing  invitations  to  conform  outwardly  to  this 
Church,  he  declined,  on  the  ground  that  within  its  fold  he  could 
not  hold  in  peace  his  philosophical  opinions,  with  which,  in 
reality,  the  Church  had  no  right  to  meddle;  he  denied  that  he 
was  a  schismatic,  therefore,  by  his  own  fault,  and  maintained 
the  same  ground  in  respect  to  Luther  and  the  Protestants 
generally.^  The  Church  universal,  according  to  Leibnitz,  ever 
holds  and  is  authorized  to  teach  the  essentials  of  reUgion;  but 
it  is  not  authorized  to  go  beyond  this  limit.  In  case  it  does 
so,  and  thus  invades  the  rights  of  conscience,  an  individual,  or 
a  body  of  individuals,  are  not  injured  by  excommunication; 
and,  when  they  find  themselves,  without  their  fault,  in  this 
position,  their  ministry  and  their  administration  of  the  sacra- 
ments become  valid  and  acceptable  to  God.  His  remedy  for 
the  divisions  of  Christendom  was  a  general  council,  in  which 
all  parties  should  appear,  and  by  which  their  common  faith 
should  be  defined;  everything  else  being  left  to  the  free  judg- 
ment of  individuals  and  of  national  churches.  The  point  on 
which  Leibnitz  and  Bossuet  could  not  unite  was  the  authority 
of  the  Council  of  Trent.  Bossuet  asserted  that  the  Cathohc 
Church  could  make  explanations  but  no  retractions;  and  that 
the  creed  of  Trent  could  not  be  altered.*  Leibnitz  did  not 
allow  that  the  Tridentine  Council  is  an  oecumenical  body;  and 
he  objected  to  some  of  its  determinations :  for  example,  to  those 

»  Von  Rommel,  ii.  367.  ^  Ibid.,  p.   19.  '  Ihid.,  ii.  365. 

*  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  Dr.  Pusey's  argument  for  union,  An  Eirenicon, 
etc.  (1866),  was  met  by  Archbishop  Manning  with  the  same  demand  for  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  Tridentine  Council.  But  the  representations  of  Roman 
Catholic  theology  by  men  like  Bossuet  and  Mohler  must  be  read  with  the  recollec- 
tion that  there  is  a  stricter  orthodoxy  than  is  found  in  them. 


EFFORTS   FOR   UNION  409 

relating  to  marriage.^  The  outbreaking  of  the  Jansenist  per- 
secution, and  the  tyranny  and  persecuting  policy  of  Louis  XIV., 
dashed  in  pieces  whatever  hopes  of  union  sanguine  persons 
may  have  been  led  to  entertain,  in  consequence  of  these  con- 
ferences between  Protestant  and  CathoUc  leaders. 

1  Leibnitz  wrote  "a  theological  system"  about  the  year  1684,  which  purports 
to  be  from  the  hand  of  a  Catholic.  His  design  was  to  exhibit  that  moderate  type 
of  Catholicism  which  must  be  offered  on  the  Catholic  side  as  a  basis  of  negotia- 
tions for  reunion.  In  regard  to  his  own  position  he  says,  in  a  letter  to  T.  Burnet, 
in  1705  :  "On  a  eu  la  meme  opinion  de  moi  [as  of  Grotius],  lorsque  j'ai  expliqu6 
en  bonne  part  certaines  opinions  des  docteurs  de  I'figlise  Romaine  contre  les  accu- 
sations outr^es  de  nos  gens.  Mais  quand  on  a  voulu  passer  plus  avant  et  me  faire 
accroire,  que  je  devais  done  me  ranger  chez  eux,  je  leur  ai  bien  montr6  que  j'en 
6tais  fort  61oign^."  See  Niedner,  Kirchengsch.,  p.  818.  On  the  Eucharist,  Leib- 
nitz writes  :  "Quant  k  moi  (puisque  vous  en  demandez  mon  sentiment.  Monsieur), 
je  me  tiens  k  la  Confession  d'Augsbourg,  qui  met  une  presence  r4elle  du  corps  de 
J#sus  Christ,  et  reconnoit  quelque  chose  de  myst^rieux  dans  ce  Sacrament." 
Letter  to  M.  Pelisson  (without  date).     Leibnitzii  Opera,  ed.  Dutens,  i.  718. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   CONSTITUTION    OF   THE    PROTESTANT   CHURCHES   AND   THEIR 
RELATION  TO  THE  CIVIL  AUTHORITY  ^ 

In  Scotland  and  Geneva  the  Reformation  was  established 
by  public  authority,  as  the  result  of  a  poUtical  revolution;  in 
most  other  places,  also,  it  was  introduced  by  the  free  act  of 
princes  or  municipahties,  who  acted  as  the  organs  of  the  popular 
will.  In  France,  and  wherever  the  government  was  not  carried 
into  the  new  movement,  it  was  organized  independently  of  the 
civil  authority.  In  some  countries  —  in  England,  for  example 
—  civil  rulers  took  a  more  active  and  controlling  part  than 
elsewhere  in  shaping,  as  in  bringing  in,  the  new  order  of  things. 
More  of  the  previous  ecclesiastical  system  was  retained  in  some 
of  the  regions  where  Protestantism  prevailed  than  in  others. 
In  short,  the  circumstances  under  which  the  revolution  was 
effected,  as  well  as  the  varied  character  of  the  communities  in 
which  it  took  place,  had  an  important  effect  on  the  form  of  the 
new  institutions. 

The  Reformers  generally  agreed  in  discarding  the  hierarchi- 
cal idea,  and  in  holding  that  the  body  of  the  Church  is  the  origi- 
nal repository  of  ecclesiastical  authority.  It  was  government  by 
the  laity,  in  distinction  from  government  by  a  priestly  class. 
This  fundamental  principle  was  adhered  to,  and  nowhere  more 
than  in  England,  where  the  fabric  of  the  old  polity  was  least 
altered.     The  Reformers  generally  held,  also,  that  Church  and 

*  Upon  the  topics  of  the  Chapter,  the  principal  CathoUc  manual  is  Walter, 
Kirchenrecht  (13th  ed.,  1861)  ;  the  principal  Protestant  work  of  a  like  character 
is  Richter,  Lehrbuch  d.  kath  u.  prot.  Kirchenrechts,  Leipzig,  1866.  See  also  G.  J. 
Planck,  Gsch.  d.  Enstehung  u.  AusbUdung  d.  chriMl.  kirchl.  Gesellschaftsverfas- 
sung,  1803  seq.,  5  vols.;  Richter,  Gsch.  d.  evang.  Kirchenver  fas  sung  in  Deutschl., 
1851 ;  Lechler,  Gsch.  d.  Presbyterial-Verfassung,  1854.  There  are  valuable  arti- 
cles by  Sehling  on  Konsistorien,  Kollegialismus,  and  Episkopcdsystem.  in  Hauck, 
Reaiencyklopadie,  v.  425 ;  x.  642,  752  seqq. ;  and  by  Miiller  on  Presbyter icUverfas- 
aung,  Ibid.,  xvi.  9  seq.  See  also  Rotteck  u.  Welcker,  Staats  Lexikon,  art.  Kirche, 
Kirchenver fassung.  A  concise  discussion  of  the  possible  and  actual  relations  of 
Church  and  State  is  given  by  Bluntschli,  Staatsrecht,  ii.  250.  See  also  Von  Mohl, 
Staatsrecht,  Volkerrecht  und  Politik,  ii.  171,  and  Laurent,  L'J^glise  et  L' Etai  (1860). 

410 


THE   VIEWS   OF   LUTHER  411 

State  are  so  far  distinct  that  neither  is  subject  to  the  absolute 
control  of  the  other,  or  can  merge  in  the  other  its  own  existence. 
They  opposed,  on  the  one  hand,  enthusiasts  and  fanatics,  who 
clamored  for  the  subordination  or  surrender  of  secular  rule  to 
"the  saints,"  and  thus  for  the  estabUshment  of  a  theocracy. 
They  opposed,  on  the  other  hand,  an  absorption  of  ecclesiastical 
power  in  the  State,  such  as  marked  the  Roman  Empire  under 
heathenism,  and  the  Greek  Empire  in  Christian  ages. 

The  Lutheran  Reformers  professed  principles  upon  the 
government  of  the  Church  and  upon  its  relation  to  the  civil 
authority,  which  they  considered  it  impracticable  to  reaUze. 
Luther  declared  that  all  power  resides  in  the  congregation  or 
body  of  beUevers  —  the  Church  collective.  In  their  hands  are 
the  keys,  or  the  right  to  exercise  Church  discipline,  the  sacra- 
ments, and  all  the  powers  of  government.  The  clergy  are 
commissioned  by  the  people  to  perform  offices  which  belong 
to  all  in  common,  but  which  all  cannot  discharge.  They  are 
therefore  committed  by  the  voice  of  the  community  to  such 
as  are  quahfied  to  fulfill  them.  The  sacrament  of  ordination 
is  nothing  but  the  rite  whereby  persons  are  put  into  the  ministry ; 
but  they  are  constituted  an  order  of  priests.  The  churches 
have  the  power  to  elect  and  ordain  their  ministers,  for  it  is  the 
churches  to  whom  the  command  is  addressed  to  preach  the 
Gospel.  The  Church  is  endued  with  the  right  to  govern  itself; 
the  right  of  excommunication  belongs  not  to  a  body  of  eccle- 
siastics, but  to  the  congregation  and  its  chosen  pastors.* 

But  these  abstract  doctrines  Luther  and  his  associates 
thought  themselves  prevented  by  circumstances  from  carrying 
into  practice.  They  were  led,  also,  by  the  situation  in  which 
they  were  placed,  to  modify,  in  important  particulars,  these 
theoretical  statements,  especially  on  the  point  of  the  relations 
of  the  civil  authority  to  the  Church.  The  Germans,  Luther 
said,  were  too  rough,  wild,  and  turbulent,  and  too  unpracticed 
in  self-government  to  take  ecclesiastical  power,  in  this  way, 
into  their  hands  at  once,  without  producing  infinite  disorders 
and  confusion.  The  princes  must  take  the  lead  in  ecclesias- 
tical arrangements,  and  the  people  must  conform  to  their 
wholesome  arrangements.     The  authority  of  civil  rulers  in  the 

*  For  the  passages  from  Luther  and  from  the  Augsburg  Confession,  see  Giese- 
ler,  IV.  i.  2.  §  46. 


412  THE   REFORMATION 

ecclesiastical  sphere  was  pronounced  to  rest  partly  on  the  old 
right  of  patrons,  and  on  kindred  prerogatives  which  had  been 
enjoyed  by  the  secular  guardians  of  the  Church,  and  partly 
on  the  principle  that  princes  and  magistrates,  as  the  principal 
members  of  the  Church,  are  entitled  to  be  heard  with  respect; 
a  doctrine  quite  compatible  with  the  general  theory  that  Church 
government  pertains  not  to  the  clergy  alone,  but  to  the  laity, 
to  the  whole  congregation.  It  was  held,  moreover,  that  it 
belongs  to  civil  rulers  to  maintain  order,  by  the  regulation 
even  of  the  externals  of  worship.  This  indefinite  function  thus 
conceded  to  the  State  was  variously  interpreted;  but  the 
tendency  of  events  was  to  induce  the  Reformers  to  amphfy 
rather  than  abridge  it.  The  peasants'  war  and  the  subsequent 
strife  with  the  Anabaptists,  in  which  the  coercive  agency  of 
the  princes  was  necessarily  called  in,  were  influential  in  this 
direction.  There  was  a  strong  reaction  against  the  extreme 
view  of  the  enthusiasts  who  proposed  to  divest  the  magistrate 
of  every  kind  of  authority.  Luther  is  at  times  positive  in  the 
assertion  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  civil  rulers  is  restricted 
to  temporal  affairs,  to  the  protection  of  hfe  and  property.  This 
is  the  definition  of  the  Augsburg  Confession.  Yet,  as  special 
questions  arise,  both  Luther  and  Melancthon  attribute  to  the 
State  a  much  larger  measure  of  power  in  matters  of  rehgion 
than  these  terms  would  naturally  suggest.  Villages  and  cities 
should  be  compelled,  they  say,  to  have  schools  and  preachers, 
just  as  they  are  compelled  to  construct  bridges  and  roads.  But 
this  is  not  all.  It  would  be  right  for  the  Elector  to  enjoin  the 
use  of  the  Catechism,  without  which  the  people  would  not 
learn  what  it  is  to  be  a  Christian.  They  proceed  farther  and 
declare  that  the  civil  magistrate  should  take  cognizance  of 
offenses  against  the  first,  as  well  as  against  the  second,  table  of 
the  law.  He  is  morally  bound  to  suppress  and  punish  blas- 
phemy; and  this  function,  as  the  Reformation  made  progress, 
was  held  to  embrace  the  right  and  duty  of  abolishing  the  mass. 
Such  is  the  teaching  of  Melancthon  in  his  doctrinal  treatise, 
the  "Loci  Communes,"  and  such  was  the  judgment  of  both 
Reformers  in  response  to  special  inquiries  addressed  to  them 
by  princes.  Luther,  writing  in  1531  to  the  Margrave,  George 
of  Brandenburg,  refers  him  to  the  example  of  the  Hebrew  King, 
Hezekiah,  who  did  right  in  breaking  in  pieces  the  brazen  serpent 


THE   LUTHERAN   POLITY  413 

of  Moses,  although  his  act  gave  the  same  offense  to  people  as 
the  abolishing  of  the  mass  would  give.  The  Reformers  re- 
curred to  the  instance  of  Constantine,  who,  in  his  office  of  pro- 
tector of  the  Church,  was  disposed  to  quell  the  Arian  controversy 
and  to  this  end  convoked  the  Council  of  Nicsea.  Yet  Luther, 
as  well  as  Melancthon,  foresaw  that  the  Church  would  be  Hable 
to  oppression  at  the  hands  of  the  State ;  that  whereas  the  State, 
under  the  old  system,  had  been  stripped  of  its  rightful  powers 
and  influence,  an  evil  just  the  reverse  was  now  likely  to  emerge 
from  the  intermeddling  and  tyranny  of  civil  rulers.  Hence, 
both  were  willing  that  in  the  Protestant  organization  bishops 
should  be  retained  or  appointed,  who  should  have  only  a  jure 
humano  authority,  but  who  might  serve  as  a  counterpoise  to 
the  formidable  influence  of  the  State.  This  feature,  however, 
was  not  introduced  into  the  Lutheran  organization.  The  bish- 
ops generally  not  taking  the  side  of  reform,  other  provisions 
had  to  be  made  for  the  management  of  church  affairs.  The 
political  arrangements,  especially  after  the  peace  of  Augsburg, 
which  suspended  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  of  Roman  Catholic 
prelates  over  the  adherents  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  and 
made  the  reUgion  of  each  secular  state  dependent  upon  that  of 
its  ruler,  had  the  effect  to  put  into  the  hands  of  princes  more 
and  more  control  in  ecclesiastical  affairs. 

The  two  principal  characteristics  of  the  Lutheran  polity, 
as  it  was  formed  in  Saxony  and  most  Lutheran  communities, 
were  the  superintendents  and  consistories.  Superintendents 
were  first  appointed  in  the  Church  of  Stralsund,  and  next  by 
the  Elector  of  Saxony,  in  the  instructions  to  the  Visitors  who 
were  sent,  at  the  request  of  the  theologians,  to  the  Saxon 
churches  in  1527.^  The  superintendents,  in  their  respective 
districts,  took  the  place  of  bishops  and  exercised  an  oversight 
upon  the  doctrine  and  the  worship  of  the  churches  and  upon 
the  pastors.  The  consistories  arose  from  the  need  of  a  com- 
petent tribunal  to  adjudicate  upon  questions  relating  to  mar- 
riage and  divorce.    With  the  abolishing  of   the   canon   law, 

'  The  "Instructions  to  Visitors  "  were  drawn  up  by  Melancthon.  They  in- 
cluded a  directory  for  divine  worship  and  for  the  instruction  of  the  people.  They 
established  a  uniform  system  in  the  government  and  worship  of  the  Saxon  churches. 
The  ignorance  of  the  people  and  of  their  teachers  so  impressed  Luther  that  he 
was  led  to  compose  his  Catechisms.  The  system  established  by  the  Visitation 
was  carried  out  by  force  of  law. 


414  THE  REFORMATION 

many  of  the  provisions  of  which  clashed  with  Protestant 
principles,  and  with  the  loss  of  the  old  episcopal  tribunals, 
numerous  and  often  perplexing  questions  were  brought  before 
the  Lutheran  pastors.  Not  a  few  of  the  letters  of  Luther 
himself  and  of  his  associates  are  in  response  to  petitions  for 
advice  from  princes  and  private  persons  respecting  marriage 
and  divorce.  The  unsettled  views  on  this  subject  —  the  state 
of  things  inevitably  consequent  on  the  renunciation  of  the  old 
system  of  ecclesiastical  laws,  which  in  many  points  the  Re- 
formers judged  to  be  unscriptural  and  unreasonable  —  must  be 
taken  into  account,  in  considering  the  conduct  of  the  Witten- 
berg Reformers  in  the  case  of  the  scandalous  double-marriage 
of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse.  But  marriage  was  partly  a  secular 
matter,  falling  under  the  cognizance  of  the  civil  tribunals,  and 
partly  ethical  and  religious,  and  so  coming  within  the  province 
of  the  Church  and  clergy.  Hence  mixed  tribunals,  composed 
partly  of  clergy  and  partly  of  jurists,  were  constituted  by  the 
civil  authority,  and  into  the  hands  of  these  bodies,  called  con- 
sistories, the  same  name  which  the  former  episcopal  courts 
had  borne,  the  whole  ecclesiastical  administration,  including 
the  right  of  excommunication,  was  committed.  The  only 
right  left  to  the  churches  in  the  election  of  pastors  was  that 
of  confirming  or  rejecting  the  nomination  made  by  the  patrons. 

In  Brandenburg  and  Prussia,  where  the  bishops  were  not 
averse  to  the  Protestant  movement,  the  episcopal  system  lin- 
gered until  1587.  In  Denmark  it  was  suppressed  m  1536; 
the  Danish  superintendents  being  appointed  by  the  king.  Swe- 
den alone  of  the  Lutheran  countries  has  continued  the  episcopal 
organization. 

A  remarkable  attempt  was  made  in  Hesse  to  establish  a 
church  system  of  a  quite  different  character.  This  was  made 
under  the  auspices  of  Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  who  was 
governed  by  the  advice  of  Francis  Lambert,  a  converted  Fran- 
ciscan, a  native  of  Avignon,  who  had  embraced  Protestantism, 
and  had  resided  first  with  Zwingli  at  Zurich,  and  then  at  Witten- 
berg. The  Church  constitution,  to  which  we  refer,  was  devised 
at  a  synod  at  Homberg,  in  1526,  and  was  democratic  in  its 
principles.  The  Gospel  was  to  be  preached  in  every  place,  and 
then  a  Church  was  to  be  organized,  to  consist  of  true  believers 
who  were  willing  to  unite  in  a  common  subjection  to  the  rules 


THE   PROPOSED   HESSIAN    POLITY  415 

of  discipline.  The  body  thus  composed  was  to  choose  its  own 
pastors,  who  were  called  bishops,  and  might  be  taken  from  any 
profession,  and  to  exercise  self-government  including  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  strict  discipline  and  of  excommunication 
where  it  should  be  required.  Every  year  each  Church  was  to 
be  represented  by  bishops  and  delegates  in  a  general  synod, 
where  all  complaints  were  to  be  heard  and  doubtful  questions 
solved.  The  business  of  the  synod  was  to  be  prepared  before- 
hand by  a  committee  of  thirteen;  and  at  each  meeting  three 
visitors  were  to  be  chosen  to  investigate  the  condition  of  each 
Church.  The  plan  may  be  described  as  the  Congregational 
system  with  an  infusion  of  Presbyterian  elements.  ''The  fea- 
tures of  it,"  says  Ranke,  "are  the  same  as  those  on  which  the 
French,  the  Scottish,  and  the  American  Church  was  afterwards 
established;  upon  them,  one  may  say,  the  existence,  the  de- 
velopment of  North  America  rests.  They  have  an  immeasur- 
able, world-historical  importance.  At  the  first  experiment, 
they  appear  in  a  complete  form :  a  little  German  synod  adopted 
them." 

Luther  considered  the  people  quite  unprepared  for  such 
arrangements.  He  often  complained  of  the  indocile  roughness 
and  obtuseness  of  the  rustics,  who  could  not  be  brought  to 
undertake  the  support  of  their  own  ministers.  Before  the 
Romberg  Synod  he  had  become  convinced  that  Church  arrange- 
ments, so  much  at  variance  with  those  with  which  the  Germans 
had  been  familiar,  would  prove  impracticable  and  abortive. 
Artificial  legislation,  not  a  historical  growth,  was  contrary  to 
his  ideas:  even  Moses,  he  said,  had  set  down  what  was  cus- 
tomary and  traditional  among  his  people.  In  all  such  matters 
he  held  that  we  must  proceed  with  slow  steps.  "Little  and 
well"  was  the  motto  which  he  adopted.  Such  a  mass  of  new 
laws,  he  wrote  to  the  Landgrave,  he  could  not  approve  of;  it 
was  a  great  thing  to  make  a  law,  and  without  the  Spirit  of  God 
no  good  could  come  of  it.  Partly  from  Luther's  opposition 
and  still  more  from  the  influence  of  the  causes  on  which  his 
objections  were  founded,  the  Hessian  constitution  was  never 
fully  set  in  operation. 

The  course  of  events  in  Germany  had  brought  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Church  into  the  hands  of  the  Protestant  princes 
within  their  respective  states.    Theologians  and  jurists  pro- 


416  THE   REFORMATION 

posed  various  theories  in  explanation  or  justification  of  this 
fact.  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  "epis- 
copal system"  was  advocated,  according  to  which  the  civil 
rulers  were  held  to  have  received  their  ecclesiastical  powers 
from  the  Emperor  by  the  Treaty  of  Passau  and  the  Peace  of 
Augsburg.  Some  held  that  these  powers  were  provisionally 
bestowed,  by  "devolution,"  until  the  opposing  churches 
should  be  reunited;  others,  that  they  were  now  restored  to  the 
place  where  they  had  originally  and  rightfully  belonged.  At 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  "territorial  system" 
was  set  up,  in  which  episcopal  authority  —  jus  episcopate  — 
was  identified  with  the  conceded  right  of  the  princes  to  reform 
abuses  in  religion  —  the  jus  reformandi.  This  system  made 
the  government  of  the  Church,  not  including,  however,  the 
determination  of  doctrinal  disputes,  a  part  of  the  prince's  proper 
function,  as  the  ruler  of  the  State.  This  theory  was  advanced 
by  Thomasius,  whose  opinion  was  shared  for  substance  by 
Grotius,  and  by  Selden,  the  English  defender  of  the  theory 
which  denies  the  autonomy  of  the  Church,  and  is  known  under 
the  name  of  Erastianism.  Professed  at  first  in  the  interest  of 
toleration,  the  "territorial  system"  became  the  potent  instru- 
ment of  tyranny.  Another  theory,  the  "collegial  system,"  was 
elaborated  by  Puffendorf  and  Pfaff.  This  made  the  Church 
originally  an  independent  society,  which  devolved,  by  contract, 
episcopal  authority  upon  the  civil  rulers.  The  oppression  of 
the  Church  by  the  State  —  what  the  Germans  call  Ccesaro- 
papismus  —  has  been  a  prolific  source  of  evil  in  Lutheran  com- 
munities. 

In  the  Reformed  branch  of  the  Protestant  family  there  was 
the  same  theory  respecting  the  rights  of  the  Church  to  govern 
itself,  and  respecting  the  relation  of  Church  and  State  as  aux- 
iliary to  one  another.  The  independence  of  the  Church  upon 
secular  control  was  in  general  maintained  with  much  more 
distinctness  and  tenacity,  partly  from  the  circumstance  that 
several  of  the  Calvinistic  Churches  —  for  example,  the  churches 
of  France,  Scotland,  and  the  Netherlands  —  framed  their  or- 
ganization as  sects,  with  no  sympathy  from  the  civil  rulers. 
This  fact  was  not  without  its  influence  in  stamping  more  re- 
publican features  upon  their  polity.  In  Zurich,  Zwingli  saw, 
as  Luther  had  seen,  that  the  body  of  the  people  were  not  ripe 


THE   VIEWS   OF   CALVIN  417 

for  self-government  according  to  a  popular  method;  and  ac- 
cordingly ecclesiastical  authority  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
Great  Council,  which  governed  the  city,  and  was  considered  to 
represent  the  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  civil  community.  The 
clergy  were  nominated  or  presented  by  the  magistracy,  the 
privilege  being  given  to  the  people,  who  were  convened  for  the 
purpose  of  objecting  to  the  candidates.  Zwingli  held,  also, 
that  excommimication  should  be  left  to  the  Christian  magistracy, 
as  long  as  they  did  not  neglect  their  duty  in  this  particular. 
In  1525  a  court  composed  of  pastors  and  civilians  was  con- 
stituted for  the  decision  of  questions  pertaining  to  marriage 
and  divorce.  The  infliction  of  all  punishments  was  relegated 
to  the  civil  authority.  The  principle  of  the  parity  of  the  clergy 
was  strictly  adhered  to.  (Ecolampadius  at  Basel  endeavored 
to  restore  church  discipline  to  the  Church  itself,  but  his  efforts 
in  this  direction,  though  partially  successful  for  a  time,  soon 
failed;  and  the  Zurich  system,  in  its  essential  characteristics, 
was  adopted  in  the  other  Swiss  Cantons. 

The  doctrine  of  Calvin  with  regard  to  the  proper  constitution 
of  the  Church  and  the  connection  of  Church  and  State  is  set 
forth  with  his  usual  clearness  in  the  "  Institutes."  The  officers 
of  the  Church  are,  besides  deacons,  lay  elders  who,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  clergy,  have  charge  of  church  discipline.  The 
equality  of  the  clergy,  or  the  identity  of  presbyters  and  bishops, 
is  affirmed.  The  officers  are  to  be  chosen  by  the  congregation, 
under  the  lead  and  presidency  of  the  officers  already  existing, 
Calvin,  in  speaking  of  the  constitution  of  the  State,  does  not 
conceal  his  partiality  for  an  aristocratic  form  modified  by 
democratic  elements;  and  this  feeling,  notwithstanding  his 
view  that  power  resides  ultimately  in  the  congregation,  betrays 
itself  in  his  remarks  on  the  proper  method  of  electing  officers  of 
the  Church.  The  Church  has  no  authority  to  use  force  or  in- 
flict civil  punishments  of  any  sort.  Its  functions  are  purely 
spiritual.  On  the  other  hand,  the  State  has  no  moral  right  to 
intrude  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Church  or  to  diminish  its 
liberty.  Nevertheless,  the  State  is  bound  to  cooperate  with  the 
Church,  and  to  aid  it  by  the  efficient  use  of  distinctly  civil 
instrumentalities.  Calvin  rejects  the  theory  that  the  State  has 
cognizance  only  of  the  worldly  concerns  of  men.  It  is  the  first 
and  most  imperative  duty  of  the  magistrate  to  foster  religion, 


418  THE   REFORMATION 

and  hence  he  is  solemnly  bound  to  punish  and  extirpate  heresy. 
He  says  that  if  "  the  Scripture  did  not  teach  that  this  office  (of 
the  magistracy)  extends  to  both  tables  of  the  law,  we  might 
learn  it  from  heathen  writers;  for  not  one  of  them  has  treated 
of  the  office  of  magistrates,  of  legislation,  and  civil  government, 
without  beginning  with  religion  and  divine  worship."  It  be- 
longs to  government  to  see  "  that  idolatry,  sacrileges  against  the 
name  of  God,  blasphemies  against  his  truth,  and  other  offenses 
against  religion,  may  not  openly  appear  and  be  disseminated 
among  the  people."  ''Civil  government  is  designed,  as  long 
as  we  live  in  this  world,  to  cherish  and  support  the  external 
worship  of  God,  to  preserve  the  pure  doctrine  of  religion,  to 
defend  the  constitution  of  the  Church,"  as  well  as  to  promote 
the  temporal  interests  of  men.  This  idea  of  the  relation  of 
government  to  religion  prevailed  among  Calvinists;  it  is  dis- 
tinctly asserted  in  the  Confession  of  the  Westminster  Assembly. 
Nor  was  it  peculiar  to  them;  it  is  stated  by  Melancthon  in  lan- 
guage similar  to  that  employed  by  Calvin.  It  is  substantially 
the  view  which  had  been  held  in  the  Catholic  Church.  It  has 
been  said  of  Calvin  with  truth,  that  "he  labored  to  produce  in 
men  a  deeper  reverence  for  religious  acts  and  persons,  to  make 
them  conscious  of  the  mystic  union  that  subsists  among  all 
true  believers,  and  especially  to  invest  the  doctrine  of  the  visible 
Church  with  new  significance,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  instituted 
not  as  any  mere  conventional  establishment,  but  for  the  train- 
ing and  maturing  of  human  souls  in  faith  and  holiness."  He 
fought  a  battle  in  defense  of  the  prerogative  of  the  Church  to 
excommunicate  offending  members,  and  to  deny  the  Eucharist 
to  the  unworthy;  and  he  vindicated  this  right  against  the 
interference  of  the  civil  authority.  He  first  established  the 
eldership  in  full  vigor,  committing  the  regulation  of  doctrine 
and  discipline  to  a  body  of  clerical  and  lay  pastors,  there  being 
twice  as  many  laymen  as  ministers  on  the  board.  Geneva 
being  so  small  a  territory,  the  synodal  constitution  could  not 
be  developed  as  it  was  in  other  Calvinistic  churches.  The 
powers  that  were  attributed  to  the  Church  by  Calvin's  theory 
tended  to  give  the  entire  system  of  government  at  Geneva  the 
character  of  a  theocracy;  but  this  tendency  was  modified  in 
its  effect  by  the  agency  given  to  the  Councils  in  the  selection 
of  church  officers,  and  by  other  features  in  which  there  was  a 


THE   PRESBYTERIAN   POLITY  419 

departure  from  the  strict  principle  of  independence  and  self- 
government  on  the  part  of  the  Chm-ch. 

The  Presbyterian  constitution  was  adopted,  with  special 
varieties  of  form,  in  the  Protestant  churches  of  Scotland, 
France,  and  the  Netherlands.  In  Scotland  there  was  at  first 
an  approximation,  on  one  point,  at  least,  to  the  Lutheran 
system;  since,  in  1560,  superintendents  were  appointed,  their 
jurisdiction  being  coextensive  with  the  ancient  diocesan  divi- 
sions. But  this  was  a  transient  arrangement.  Nowhere  did 
the  hatred  of  prelacy,  and  of  everything  that  looked  like  it, 
become  more  fervent  than  in  Scotland.  The  Presbyterian 
system  was  fully  established,  and  affirmed  to  exist  by  divine 
right.  There  were  two  classes  of  elders  constituted  —  ruling, 
or  lay  elders,  and  preaching  elders  —  who  together  formed  the 
Kirksession  and  exercised  government  in  the  Church.  Vacan- 
cies in  the  lay  part  of  the  session  were  filled  by  the  body  itself, 
on  the  nomination  of  the  pastor.  The  highest  tribunal  for  the 
exercise  of  Church  authority  was  the  General  Assembly  or 
National  Synod,  in  which  the  ministerial  representatives  were 
on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality.  In  France,  the  churches 
being  separately  organized,  were  at  first  autonomic  in  their 
polity,  the  preacher  with  the  lay  elders  and  deacons  forming 
the  consistory  or  senate,  the  governing  body.  While  in  Geneva, 
the  elders  were  chosen  for  life,  in  France  they  were  elected  only 
for  a  term  of  years.  Vacancies  were  filled  on  the  nomination 
of  the  consistory  itself.  In  France  the  elders  confined  them- 
selves to  the  exercise  of  government  and  discipline,  and  did  not, 
as  at  Geneva,  visit  the  houses  or  cooperate  officially  with  the 
pastors  in  the  cure  of  souls.  This  auxiliary  service  was  devolved 
on  the  deacons.  In  1559  the  synodal  constitution  was  intro- 
duced, by  which  the  authority  that  had  resided  in  the  consis- 
tories was  limited,  supreme  jurisdiction  being  placed  in  the 
National  Synod,  which  formed  the  highest  court,  and  exercised 
a  general  superintendence  in  matters  of  doctrine  and  discipline.^ 
The  Presbyterians  have  always  manifested  a  jealousy  of  state- 

*  A  serious  dispute  broke  out  in  the  French  Church  in  1571  between  the  ad- 
vocates of  a  type  of  Congregationalism,  of  whom  the  celebrated  Ramus  was  one, 
and  the  defenders  of  the  established  system,  which  lodged  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment in  the  Consistory.  The  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  caused  the  subject 
to  be  forgotten.  For  notices  of  this  interesting  controversy,  see  Martin,  Hist, 
de  France,  ix.  277,  n.  2 ;  Weber,  Darstellung  d.  Calvinismus,  p.  59  n. ;  Von  Polenz, 
Geschichte  d.  franzosisch.  Calv.,  i.  422,  709 ;  Schlosser,  Leben  Beza,  p.  219. 


420  THE   REFORMATION 

control  and  a  disposition  to  keep  the  government  of  the  Church 
in  its  own  hands.  But  in  England,  at  the  epoch  of  the  Long 
Parliament  and  the  Westminster  Assembly,  concessions  had 
to  be  made,  in  consequence  of  the  want  of  unanimity  in  the 
adoption  of  Presbyterian  principles  and  the  refusal  of  Parlia- 
ment to  surrender  the  supreme  power  in  ecclesiastical  affairs/ 

The  relation  of  the  established  Church  to  the  State  in  Eng- 
land, where  the  principal  control  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  was 
assumed  by  the  civil  authority,  has  been  variously  defined. 
For  a  while,  the  Byzantine  theory,  which  conceives  of  the  King 
as  possessed  of  a  sort  of  priestly  function,  as  being  an  ecclesias- 
tical as  well  as  a  civil  person,  seems  to  have  been  tacitly  held. 
His  headship  over  the  Church  and  control  in  ecclesiastical 
government  were  justified  on  this  hypothesis.  The  Erastian 
doctrine,  according  to  which  the  Church,  as  such,  has  none  of 
the  prerogatives  of  government,  which  inhere  wholly  in  the 
State,  had  its  adherents  in  England,  and  left  its  influence  upon 
the  English  polity.  It  was  the  theory  of  Hooker  that  the  Church 
of  any  particular  country,  and  the  State  there  existing,  are  one 
and  the  same  society.  They  are  not  two  distinct  societies 
which  unite  or  coalesce  in  a  degree;  but  they  are  one  and  the 
same  social  body,  which,  as  related  of  temporal  concerns,  and 
all  things  except  true  religion,  is  the  commonwealth ;  as  related 
to  religion,  is  the  Church.^    The  supremacy  of  the  King,  if  the 

*  The  order  of  worship  which  was  adopted  in  the  different  Reformed  Churches 
was  in  accord  with  their  respective  ideas  of  doctrine  and  poUty.  Luther  retained 
many  of  the  ancient  forms ;  but  he  gave  to  the  sermon  a  place  of  central  impor- 
tance, and  was  careful  to  insist  that  the  arrangements  of  the  Wittenberg  Service 
Book  should  not  be  imposed  on  others.  We  must  be  masters  of  ceremonies  — 
not  let  them  be  masters  of  us  —  was  his  motto.  The  singing  of  hymns  assumed 
a  prominent  place  in  Lutheran  worship.  The  changes  of  Zwingli  were  much 
more  radical.  In  Zurich,  church  singing  was  given  up  until  1598.  At  Basel 
and  some  other  Swiss  towns,  however,  the  German  Psalms  were  sung.  The 
Church  of  Geneva  followed  substantially  the  Zurich  service,  but  used  the  French 
versions  of  the  Psalms,  by  Marot  and  Beza.  The  Genevan  Service  Book  served 
as  a  model  for  various  other  Reformed  Churches.  On  this  whole  subject,  see 
Gieseler,  iv.  i.  2,  §  47,  where  the  literature  is  given.  The  Liturgy  of  the  Anglican 
Church  was  largely  drawn  from  the  old  service  books.  See  A.  J.  Stephens,  The 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  with  Notes,  Legal  and  Historical  (1849).  W.  Maske,  The 
Ancient  Liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England  (2d  ed.,  1846).  C.  W.  Shields,  The  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  as  amended  by  the  West.  Divines;  with  a  Hist,  and  Liturgical 
Treatise  (1867).  Procter  and  Frere,  A  New  History  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
(London,  1901). 

^  Ecclesiast.  Polity,  h.  viii.  "We  say  that  the  care  of  religion  being  common 
to  all  societies  politic,  such  societies  as  do  embrace  the  true  religion  have  the  name 
of  Church  given  unto  every  one  of  them  for  distinction  from  the  rest."  "When 
we  oppose,    therefore,   the  Church  and  Commonwealth  in  Christian  society,  we 


CHURCH   AND   STATE   IN   ENGLAND  421 

government  is  monarchical,  over  the  Church  is  the  corollary 
of  this  proposition.  Among  the  modern  advocates  of  this 
hypothesis,  one  of  the  ablest  is  the  late  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold. 
In  idea,  the  Chm"ch  and  State,  he  thinks,  are  identical.  Their 
end,  their  ergon,  is  the  same.  He  rejects,  with  all  his  heart, 
the  modern  theory  that  the  design  of  the  State  is  limited  to  the 
protection  of  body  and  goods.  The  State,  in  its  very  idea,  i^ 
religious,  and  is  bound  to  aim  at  the  promotion  of  religion. 
Rejecting,  also,  the  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession  and  of  a 
priestly  order,  Arnold  finds  in  the  King's  supremacy  an  emblem 
and  a  realization  of  the  truth  that  the  laity  have  a  right  to 
govern  in  the  Church.  The  more  the  State  is  pervaded  by  the 
spirit  of  Christianity,  the  more  is  the  Church,  as  a  separate 
body,  superseded.  The  ideal  towards  which  we  are  to  strive 
is  the  identification  of  the  two.* 

The  theory  of  Warburton  proceeds  upon  a  denial  of  the  iden- 
tity of  Church  and  State.^  They  are  in  their  own  nature,  and 
originally,  distinct  and  separate  societies.  But  this  mutual 
independence  does  not  of  necessity  continue.  They  may  enter 
into  an  alliance  with  one  another  upon  certain  terms,  the 
result  of  which  is  a  connection  and  mutual  dependence  of  the 
two.  The  Church  enters  into  a  relation  of  subordination  to 
the  State,  the  State  making  stipulations  which  bind  it  to  support 
the  Church.  There  is  a  contract  with  conditions  to  be  fulfilled 
on  either  side.  If  the  State  should  fail  to  fulfill  these  engage- 
ments, the  Church  may  withdraw  from  the  connection,  and  then 
falls  back  upon  its  original  condition  of  independence. 

Coleridge  has  suggested  a  theory  somewhat  diverse  from 
that  of  Warburton.^  The  hypothesis  of  Coleridge,  as  far  as  it  is 
peculiar,  is  founded  on  a  distinction  between  the  visible  Church 
of  Christ,  as  it  may  be  found  in  any  particular  country,  and  the 
national   or  established  Church  of   that  country.     The  visible 

mean  by  the  Commonwealth  that  society  with  relation  to  all  the  public  affairs 
thereof,  only  the  matter  of  true  religion  excepted  :  by  the  Church,  the  same  so- 
ciety with  only  reference  unto  the  matter  of  true  religion,  without  any  affairs 
besides. " 

'  See  Arnold's  Life  and  Correspondence  (by  Stanley),  passim;  and  Arnold's 
Miscellaneous  Writings.  The  eminent  German  theologian,  Rothe,  has  advo- 
cated a  similar  theory,  in  his  Christliche  Ethik,  and  in  his  posthumous  Dogmatik, 
iii.  32  seq. 

2  This  and  other  theories  are  sketched  in  the  Preface  to  Coleridge's  Church 
and  State,  by  H.  N.  Coleridge.     Coleridge's  Works  (ed.  Shedd),  vol.  vi. 

^  Works,   vol.   vi. 


422  THE   REFORMATION 

Church  is  a  kingdom  not  of  this  world;  it  manages  its  own 
affairs,  appoints  and  supports  its  own  ministers.  The  State  is 
competent  neither  to  appoint  nor  to  displace  these  ministers, 
nor  is  it  responsible  for  their  maintenance.  The  national 
Church,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  public  and  visible  community, 
having  ministers  whom  the  nation,  through  the  agency  of  a 
constitution,  has  created  trustees  of  a  reserved  national  fund, 
upon  fixed  terms,  and  with  defined  duties,  and  whom,  in  the 
case  of  breach  of  those  terms,  or  dereliction  of  those  duties, 
the  nation,  through  the  same  agency,  may  discharge.  But 
the  ministers  of  the  one  Church  may  also  be  the  ministers  of  the 
other ;  the  ministers  of  the  visible  Church  of  Christ  may  be,  also, 
the  ministers  of  the  national  or  established  Church.  This  is, 
for  many  reasons,  expedient,  and  is  actually  the  case.  Thus 
the  titles,  emoluments,  and  political  power  of  the  clergy,  belong 
to  them,  not  as  ministers  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  which  is  not 
national  or  local,  but  as  an  estate  of  the  realm;  as  a  body 
charged  with  the  vast  responsibility  of  preserving  and  promot- 
ing the  moral  culture  of  the  people.  In  this  capacity  they 
may  sit  in  Parliament,  which  is  the  great  Council  of  the  nation. 

Mr.  Gladstone,  in  his  work  on  "Church  and  State,"  some 
of  the  doctrines  of  which  he  renounced  later,  does  not  differ 
materially  from  Coleridge.*  His  view  partly  depends  on  his 
conception  of  jure  divino  elements  in  Church  polity.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone holds  that  the  State  is  a  moral  person,  bound  to  act 
in  the  name  of  Christ  and  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  to  make 
religion  the  paramount  end  in  guiding  and  governing  the  nation. 
But  he  claims  that  the  true  Church,  which  has  in  it  the  apostolic 
succession,  must  be  the  body  chosen  by  the  nation  for  the  per- 
formance of  this  high  office.  He  admits  that  there  may  be  a 
condition  of  religious  opinion,  where  this  alliance  of  the  State 
with  the  Church  is  impracticable,  as  is  the  case  in  the  United 
States;  but  in  all  such  communities,  he  considers  the  life  of 
the  State  maimed,  imperfect,  conventional. 

Chalmers  maintains  that  an  establishment  is  necessary  to 
the  proper  effect  of  Christianity  upon  a  people.^  The  State, 
he  thinks,  is  bound  to  select  and  support  some  one  denomina- 
tion, and  maintain  its  religious  teachers.  In  making  the  selec- 
tion, the  State  must  be  governed,  if  this  be  practicable,  by  a 

»  Tfie  State  in  Connection  with  the  Church  (4th  ed.,  1841).  «  Works,  vol.  xvii. 


THEORIES   OF   AN   ESTABLISHMENT  423 

consideration  of  the  truth  or  error  of  the  tenets  of  the  various 
rehgious  bodies.  It  must  inquire,  what  is  truth.  But  if  reli- 
gious opinion  is  so  divided,  or  the  circumstances  are  such  that 
this  cannot  be  made  the  sole  criterion,  some  one  "Protestant," 
"evangelical"  denomination  must  be  chosen. 

Macaulay,  in  his  review  of  Gladstone's  book,  represents  the 
lowest,  or  most  moderate  type  of  opinion  among  the  advocates 
of  an  Establishment.^  He  denies  that  the  direct  end  of  govern- 
ment is  the  propagation  of  religion.  The  direct  end  of  govern- 
ment is  the  protection  of  life  and  property.  This  is  the  proper 
and  only  essential  function  of  the  State.  But  while  pursuing 
this  end,  the  State  may  and  should,  as  a  collateral  object,  have 
in  view  the  moral  and  religious  improvement  of  the  people. 
Especially  may  public  education  be  defended  as  necessary  to 
the  safety  of  the  State.  The  promotion  of  religion  is  an  in- 
cidental, not  a  direct  or  main  business  of  the  civil  organization. 
In  selecting  its  Church,  or  the  religious  instructors  of  the  people, 
the  State  or  government  must  be  determined,  not,  indeed,  by 
the  mere  will  of  a  majority,  not  by  its  own  views  of  truth 
exclusively ;  but  must  act  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure  the  largest 
proportion  of  truth  with  the  smallest  admixture  of  error.  Hence 
the  religious  views  and  prejudices  that  prevail  in  the  community 
must  always  be  consulted  and  respected. 

In  the  English  system,  the  filling  of  all  high  ecclesiastical 
offices  devolves  on  the  sovereign,  the  ecclesiastical  bodies  not 
being  at  liberty  to  refuse  the  formal  concurrence  which  is  re- 
quired to  fulfill  the  election.  The  two  provinces  of  York  and 
Canterbury  have  each  its  Convocation,  composed  of  two  houses, 
the  first  consisting  of  the  bishops,  and  the  second,  of  the  rest  of 
the  clergy;  and  the  two  Convocations  may  combine.  But 
since  Convocation  cannot  assemble  without  authority  from 
Parliament,  and  it  is  not  possible  for  any  ecclesiastical  laws  or 
canons  to  be  passed  without  the  consent  of  Parliament,  the 
result  has  been  that  for  centuries  Convocation  has  had  little 
more  than  a  nominal  existence.  To  this  extent  has  synodal 
government  vanished  in  the  English  Church,  and  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Church  been  surrendered  to  the  State.^ 

•  Macaulay 's  Essays,  vol.  iv. 

*  Convocation,  in  1665,  surrendered  the  privilege  of  taxing  the  clergy,  which 
had  before  pertained  to  it,  to  the  House  of  Commons.  Within  the  last  twenty 
years  attempts  have  been  made  to  revive  Convocation,  and  to  invest  it  with  some 


424  THE   REFORMATION 

A  few  lines  will  suffice  for  a  brief  sketch  of  changes  in  this 
branch  of  poUty.  In  England,  in  early  days,  while  the  Church 
was  engaged  in  planting  Christianity  by  winning  converts,  it  was 
left  free  from  dictation  by  the  civil  rulers.  When  the  conversion 
of  princes  and  rulers  in  the  nation  was  well  advanced,  civilians 
and  ecclesiastics  took  part  in  managing  rehgious  concerns.  It 
was  a  new  epoch  when  the  Norman  Conquest  by  its  increase  of 
the  secular  power  led  to  a  rivahy  and  conflict  between  the  two 
classes,  with  fluctuating  results.  More  and  more  the  kings 
gained  influence  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  compared  with  parlia- 
ments. The  two  Convocations,  of  Canterbury  and  York,  existed 
before  parUaments  were  organized.  The  times  of  Henry  VIII. 
brought  in  a  marked  change.  The  Convocation  of  Canterbury 
submitted,  in  1532,  to  the  King's  ordinances.  It  could  be  as- 
sembled only  by  his  command.  It  could  neither  enact  nor  pro- 
mulgate any  canons  or  other  ordinances  without  previous  royal 
consent  and  the  sovereign's  approval  after  their  adoption.  Con- 
troversy between  its  two  houses  caused  it  to  be  prorogued  in 
1717  by  a  royal  writ.  From  this  time  until  1861  Convocation 
usually  met  simultaneously  with  Parliament,  but  in  this  period 
had  not  license  from  the  King  to  transact  business.  It  was  per- 
mitted to  meet  (Canterbury  in  1852,  York  in  1856),  but  the 
power  of  ecclesiastical  legislation  was  not  granted  to  it.  It 
could  enter  into  discussions,  often  of  much  interest  to  the 
members. 

Turning  to  the  Catholic  Church,  we  find,  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  singular  development  of  doctrine  on 
the  origin  and  nature  of  civil  authority.  High  views  of  Papal 
authority,  as  extending  over  mundane  affairs,  were  promulgated 
by  the  Popes  themselves,  and  by  the  CathoHc  theologians,  espe- 
cially those  of  the  Jesuit  order.  The  centrafization  of  Europe, 
which  gave  such  increased  vigor  to  national  feeling  and  to  tem- 

real  function.  Boswell  records  a  v-igorous  expression  of  Dr.  Johnson,  on  this 
matter,  under  date  of  August  3,  1763  :  "I  had  the  misfortune  before  we  parted  to 
irritate  him  unintentionally.  I  mentioned  to  him  how  common  it  was  in  the  world 
to  ascribe  to  him  very  strange  sayings.  Johnson. —  'What  do  they  make  me  say, 
sir?'  Boswell. —  'Why,  sir,  an  instance  verj'  strange  indeed  (laughing  heartily 
as  I  spoke).  David  Hume  told  me  you  said  that  you  would  stand  before  a  battery 
of  cannon  to  restore  Convocation  to  its  full  powers.'  Little  did  I  apprehend  that 
he  had  actually  said  this ;  but  I  was  soon  convinced  of  my  error ;  for,  with  a  de- 
termined look,  he  thundered  out :  '  And  would  I  not,  sir  ?  Shall  the  Presbyterian 
Kirk  of  Scotland  have  its  General  Assembly,  and  the  Church  of  England  be  denied 
its  Convocation?' " 


JESUIT   DOCTRINE   OF   POPULAR   SOVEREIGNTY         425 

poral  authority,  made  it  for  the  mterest  of  the  Papal  See  to  divest 
that  authority  of  a  portion  of  its  sanctity.  Bellarmine  adopted 
the  figure  which  had  been  used  by  Thomas  Aquinas  to  define 
the  distinction,  but  close  connection,  of  the  civil  and  the  Papal 
authority.  The  former  is  to  the  latter  as  the  body  to  the  soul. 
The  two  are  not  the  same,  but  the  one  is  inferior  and  subordinate 
to  the  other;  at  the  same  time  that  the  body  has  functions  of 
its  own.  Bellarmine  affirmed  only  an  indirect  control  on  the 
part  of  the  Pope  over  the  temporal  power.  The  Pope  does  not 
immediately  legislate  in  temporal  affairs.  Yet  as  the  guardian 
of  rehgion  and  morals,  he  may  interfere  to  prevent  the  passing 
or  execution  of  a  bad  law.  He  may  absolve  subjects  from  their 
allegiance  to  a  heretical  or  unworthy  king.  A  vast  and  sweep- 
ing, though,  in  form,  an  indirect  prerogative,  in  reference  to 
the  government  of  States,  is  thus  attributed  to  him.  The  right 
to  rebel  against  heretical  sovereigns,  and  to  dethrone  them,  was 
taught  by  the  Jesuits,  WilHam  Allen  and  Parsons,  who  were 
laboring  to  overthrow  Elizabeth,  and  by  other  Catholic  teachers 
in  the  time  of  the  League,  and  of  the  assassination  of  Henry  III. 
The  right  of  rebelUon,  in  the  case  supposed,  was  solemnly 
aflftrmed  by  the  Sorbonne.  The  first  defense  of  regicide  had 
come  from  a  priest,  Jean  Petit,  who  delivered  a  discourse  in 
1408,  defending  the  murder  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  by  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy.  It  had  required  the  strenuous  exertions  and 
repeated  harangues  of  Gerson,  at  the  Council  of  Constance,  to 
procure  from  that  body  a  condemnation  of  the  doctrine  of  Petit. 
The  attempt  of  the  Poles  to  obtain  from  Martin  V.,  and  from  the 
Council,  a  condemnation  of  the  book  of  Falkenberg,  which  was 
of  kindred  tenor,  and  which  aimed  to  stir  up  insurrection  in 
Poland,  entirely  failed.  The  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  Paris 
in  the  early  days  of  Henry  IV.,  on  the  charge  of  inculcating  the 
right  to  slay,  by  private  hands,  an  heretical  ruler.  The  old  doc- 
trine of  tyrannicide  assumed  a  new  form,  and  found  adherents 
among  doctors  of  the  Church.  But  in  the  theory  of  popular 
sovereignty,  and  of  the  social  compact,  the  peculiar  tenden- 
cies of  Catholic  theology  are  most  apparent.  This  was  advo- 
cated by  Lainez,  the  second  General  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  by  the 
eminent  Spanish  Jesuit,  Mariana,  and  by  Bellarmine.  It  is  the 
doctrine  that  power,  as  far  as  temporal  rule  is  concerned,  origi- 
nally resides,  by  the  gift  and  appointment  of  God,  in  the  people. 


426  THE  REFORMATION 

Government  is  a  divine  ordinance,  but  what  form  that  govern- 
ment shall  take,  and  in  whom  it  shall  be  vested,  it  is  for  the  people 
to  determine.  What  the  Protestants  asserted  respecting  eccle- 
siastical government,  the  Jesuits  declared  of  civil  government. 
As  the  former  taught  that  ecclesiastical  power  is  originally 
deposited  in  the  body  of  the  Church,  the  latter  declared  that 
temporal  power  inheres,  originally,  in  the  body  of  the  people. 
The  political  theory  of  the  Jesuits  had  the  advantage  of  placing 
the  authority  of  the  Pope  and  his  tenure  of  office  on  a  more 
soHd  foundation  than  that  of  the  power  of  any  particular  dynasty 
or  king.  The  rule  of  the  Pope  was  given  him  directly  from 
God,  and,  therefore,  could  neither  be  questioned  nor  wrested 
from  him  by  men.  The  authority  of  the  king,  on  the  contrary, 
came  to  him  mediately  through  the  people,  and  might  be  re- 
called at  their  will.  This  political  doctrine,  moreover,  furnished 
a  sufficient  defense  for  a  popular  rebellion,  especially  if  it  were 
undertaken  with  the  sanction  of  the  Pope.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  that  the  radical  speculations  of  Locke,  Rousseau,  and 
Jefferson,  as  to  the  origin  of  government,  and  the  right  of  revo- 
lution, were  anticipated  by  the  Jesuit  scholars  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  is  remarkable,  moreover,  that,  in  opposition  to  these 
novel  dogmas,  there  appeared,  on  the  Protestant  side,  a  theory 
of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  and  the  related  doctrine  of  passive 
obedience,  a  theory  not  known  to  the  cultivated  heathen  nations 
of  antiquity,  and  drawing  no  real  sanction  from  Hebrew  history. 
The  extreme  devotees  of  the  principle  of  authority  stand  forth 
as  the  champions  of  the  most  hberal  and  even  revolutionary 
notions  in  poHtics;  the  advocates  of  freedom  and  of  revolt 
against  spiritual  authority  are  equally  strenuous  for  slavish 
maxims  of  political  obedience. 

Transplanted  to  America,  the  various  ecclesiastical  systems 
were  furnished  with  a  new  theater  for  the  manifestation  of  their 
characteristic  features,  but  underwent  changes  from  the  effect 
of  the  new  circumstances  in  which  they  were  placed.  The  fol- 
lowers of  John  Robinson,  who  settled  Plymouth,  were  Indepen- 
dents. Their  cardinal  principles  were  first,  that  the  local  Church 
is  clothed  with  complete  powers  of  self-government,  in  the  sense 
that  no  Synod  or  Council  has  any  jurisdiction  over  it;  and 
secondly,  that  none  are  to  be  admitted  to  the  Lord's  Supper, 
except  on  the  credible  profession  of  inward  piety;  that  is^  that 


THE   SETTLERS   OF   NEW    ENGLAND  427 

the  Church  should  be  composed  of  true  believers  only.  The 
liberal  and  philosophical  mind  of  Robinson  had  attained  to  prin- 
ciples which  approach,  though  they  do  not  reach,  the  modern 
doctrine  of  toleration  and  of  the  limited  sphere  of  the  State. 
He  has  sagacious  observations  on  the  inexpediency  and  mis- 
chievous consequences  of  coercion  by  the  magistrate  in  matters 
of  religion,  and  confutes  the  popular  argument  for  it,  which  was 
founded  on  the  example  of  the  Hebrew  kings.  He  shrewdly 
comments  on  the  difference  in  the  sentiment  respecting  tolera- 
tion, which  is  felt  by  the  adherents  of  a  creed  when  they  are  in 
power,  from  that  which  they  feel  when  they  form  an  oppressed 
minority.*  The  colony  of  Plymouth  was  honorably  distin- 
guished from  the  other  New  England  governments  —  with  the 
exception  of  Rhode  Island  —  by  a  greater  liberality  in  the 
treatment  of  religious  dissent.  The  settlers  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  were  not  Separatists,  like  the  Leyden  immigrants,  who  had 
preceded  them;  but  still  the  settlers  of  Massachusetts,  finding 
themselves  on  ground  of  their  own,  and  at  liberty  to  shape  their 
poUty  to  suit  their  preferences,  established  the  system  of  Con- 
gregationalism, in  full  agreement  with  the  Church  constitution 
of  Plymouth.  But  Massachusetts  set  up  a  sort  of  theocratical 
system,  in  which  members  of  churches  were  endued  with  the 
exclusive  privilege  of  holding  civil  offices  and  exercising  the  right 
of  suffrage ;  in  which,  moreover,  the  civil  authority  was  author- 
ized and  obliged  to  punish  heresy  and  schism,  and  to  secure 
uniformity  in  worship  and  in  the  public  profession  of  religion. 
The  same  system  was  estabUshed  in  the  colony  of  New  Haven  ; 
but  in  Connecticut,  civil  rights  were  not  thus  limited  to  church 
members.  The  principle  of  the  independence  of  the  local 
Church  as  to  government,  one  of  the  two  cardinal  elements  of 
the  creed  of  the  Independents,  was  retained  in  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  of  New  England  as  far  as  the  relation  of  one 
church  to  other  churches  is  concerned.  The  office  of  other 
churches  was  limited  to  giving  counsel.  But  the  autonomy  of 
the  local  Church  was  materially  abridged  in  another  direction, 
in  the  coercive  power  granted  to  the  civil  magistracy,  and  the 
intimate  union  of  Church  and  State.  Roger  Williams  brought 
forward  the  new  doctrine  as  to  the  State,  which  limits  the  func- 
tion of  the  magistrate  to  the  cognizance  of  offenses  against  the 

'  Works  of  Robinson  (Boston,  1851),  i.  40. 


428  THE   REFORMATION 

second  table  of  the  law.  This  doctrine  involves  the  toleration 
of  all  forms  of  rehgious  belief  and  worship,  as  far  as  they  do  not 
directly  disturb  the  peace  of  society,  or  impinge  on  the  authority 
of  the  magistrate  in  his  own  proper  sphere.  The  principle  of 
religious  liberty,  which  WilUams  asserted  in  Massachusetts,  was 
incorporated  in  the  government  of  the  colony  which  he  founded 
in  Rhode  Island,  and  is  the  principle  to  which  the  American 
systems  of  government  have  gradually  conformed.^  In  this  coim- 
try,  nothing  of  the  nature  of  an  establishment  now  exists.  But 
with  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  civil  authority  to  Christianity, 
a  distinction  is  to  be  made  between  the  Federal  Government, 
and  the  several  States,  especially  the  older  States,  that  compose 
the  RepubUc.  The  General  Government  was  created  artificially, 
for  certain  purposes  and  with  a  defined  circle  of  powers.  The 
National  Constitution  contains  no  explicit  recognition  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  lends  no  special  sanction  to  any  form  of  rehgion. 
On  the  contrary,  a  general  recognition  of  Christianity  lingers  in 
the  constitutions  of  many  of  the  older  States,  at  least,  and  is 
impUed  in  various  statutes;  so  that  Christianity  must  be  con- 
sidered, in  some  sense,  a  part  of  their  public  law. 

Both  the  Episcopal  and  the  Presbyterian  Churches,  as  organ- 
ized in  this  country,  modify  respectively  their  early  formularies, 
so  that  the  control  of  the  magistracy  in  respect  to  synods  and 
ecclesiastical  affairs  generally  is  left  out;  and  the  governing 
bodies  in  these  denominations  are  free,  of  course,  to  exercise 
Church  authority,  independently  of  the  State. 

The  Roman  CathoUc  Church,  in  the  United  States,  is  consist- 
ent with  its  dogmas  and  traditions  in  advocating  the  distinc- 
tion between  Church  and  State.  So  far,  the  American  system 
may  be,  and  is,  approved  and  lauded  by  theologians  of  that 
body.  They  join  with  American  Protestants  in  opposing  reli- 
gious establishments,  such  as  exist  in  other  Protestant  countries. 
They  do  not,  however,  renounce  the  old  doctrine  of  the  subor- 
dination of  the  State  to  the  Church,  and  of  the  authority  of  the 
latter  in  civil  matters  of  civil  government  and  legislation.     So 

'  In  Maryland,  founded  by  Lord  Baltimore,  a  Roman  Catholic  (1632),  although 
there  was  religious  freedom  for  all  "who  believe  in  Christ,"  there  was  an  establish- 
ment. Such  a  colony,  subject  to  England,  would  have  brought  ruin  on  itself  by 
attempting  to  persecute  Protestants.  But  its  professed  principles  were  truly  liberal 
for  that  age.  See  Bancroft,  Hist,  of  the  United  States,  i.  242,  254,  Hildreth,  HiM.  of 
the  United  States,  i.  348. 


THE   CHURCH   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES  429 

far  from  this,  the  right  of  the  Roman  CathoHc  Church  to  exer- 
cise this  sort  of  control  is  frankly  and  boldly  asserted/ 

'  See,  for  example,  the  first  article  in  The  Catholic  World  for  July,  1872. 
The  writer  says:  "With  the  means  of  instant  intelligent  communication  and 
rapid  transportation,  is  it  not  an  impossibility  to  hope  that  the  head  of  the  Church 
may  again  become  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  re-united  family  of  Christian 
nations ;  the  arbiter  and  judge  between  princes  and  peoples,  between  government 
and  government,  the  exponent  of  the  supreme  justice  and  the  highest  law,  in  all 
important  questions  affecting  the  rights,  the  interests,  and  the  welfare  of  communi- 
ties and  individuals  ? "  The  right  of  the  Church  to  regulate  education  and  mar- 
riage is  affirmed.  "While  the  State  has  rights,  she  has  them  only  in  virtue  and 
by  permission  of  the  superior  authority,  and  that  authority  can  only  be  expressed 
through  the  Church ;  that  is,  through  the  organic  law,  infallibly  announced  and 
unchangeably  asserted,  regardless  of  temporal  consequences."  This  ideal  su- 
premacy of  the  Church,  it  is  said,  "it  is  within  the  power  of  the  ballot,  wielded 
by  Catholic  hands,"  to  establish. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    RELATION    OF    PROTESTANTISM    TO    CULTURE    AND    CIVILI- 
ZATION 

In  order  to  judge  rightly  of  the  tendencies  of  Protestantism 
in  relation  to  culture  and  civilization,  or  to  compare  Protestant- 
ism, in  this  respect,  with  the  Church  of  Rome,  something  more 
is  requisite  than  a  bare  enumeration  of  historical  facts.  Facts 
in  this  case  can  form  the  basis  of  induction,  only  so  far  as  they 
are  fairly  traceable  to  the  intrinsic  character  of  the  respective 
systems.  It  is  the  genius  of  the  systems  respectively,  as  it 
has  revealed  itself  in  their  actual  operation,  which  we  have  to 
investigate. 

Protestantism  and  the  Church  of  Rome  have  stood  face  to 
face  now  for  upwards  of  three  hundred  years.  We  can  look  at 
the  history  and  at  the  condition  of  the  Protestant  nations  and 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  nations.  The  immediate  impression 
made  by  a  general  comparison  of  this  sort  upon  a  candid  observer 
is  difficult  to  be  resisted.  What  this  impression  is,  may  be  stated 
in  the  language  of  two  modern  EngHsh  historians,  who  at  least 
are  warped  by  no  partisan  attachment  to  the  dogmatic  system 
of  the  Protestant  churches.  Macaulay,  while  conceding  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  conferred  great  benefits  on  society  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  by  instructing  the  ignorant,  by  curbing  the  passions  of 
tyrannical  civil  rulers,  and  by  affording  protection  to  their  sub- 
jects, places  in  strong  contrast  the  influence  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  during  the  last  three  centuries,  prior  to  1848,  when  she 
had  been  struggling  to  perpetuate  a  sway  which  the  developed 
intelligence  of  mankind  had  outgrown.  "The  loveliest  and  most 
fertile  provinces  of  Europe  have,  under  her  rule,  been  sunk  in 
poverty,  in  political  servitude,  and  in  intellectual  torpor,  while 
Protestant  countries,  once  proverbial  for  sterility  and  barba- 
rism, have  been  turned  by  skill  and  industry  into  gardens,  and 
can  boast  of  a  long  fist  of  heroes  and  statesmen,  philosophers 
and  poets.    Whoever,  knowing  what  Italy  and  Scotland  natu- 

430 


PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC   NATIONS  COMPARED     431 

rally  are,  and  what,  four  hundred  years  ago,  they  actually  were, 
shall  now  compare  the  country  round  Rome  with  the  country 
round  Edinburgh,  will  be  able  to  form  some  judgment  as  to  the 
tendency  of  Papal  domination.  The  descent  of  Spain,  once  the 
first  among  monarchies,  to  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation ; 
the  elevation  of  Holland,  in  spite  of  many  natural  disadvantages, 
to  a  position  such  as  no  commonwealth  so  small  has  ever  reached, 
teach  the  same  lesson.  Whoever  passes  in  Germany  from  a 
Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  principahty,  in  Switzerland 
from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant  canton,  in  Ireland  from 
a  Roman  CathoUc  to  a  Protestant  county,  finds  that  he  has 
passed  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  grade  of  civilization.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  the  same  law  prevails.  The  Protes- 
tants of  the  United  States  have  left  far  behind  them  the  Roman 
CathoHcs  of  Mexico,  Peru,  and  Brazil.  The  Roman  CathoHcs 
of  Lower  Canada  remain  inert,  while  the  whole  continent  round 
them  is  in  a  ferment  with  Protestant  activity  and  enterprise. 
The  French  have  doubtless  shown  an  energy  and  an  intelligence 
which,  even  when  misdirected,  have  justly  entitled  them  to  be 
called  a  great  people.  But  this  apparent  exception,  when  exam- 
ined, will  be  found  to  confirm  the  rule;  for  in  no  country  that 
is  called  Roman  Cathohc  has  the  Roman  CathoUc  Church  during 
several  generations  possessed  so  httle  authority  as  in  France."  ^ 
Carlyle,  in  his  quaint  and  vivid  manner,  thus  writes  of  the  peoples 
who  threw  off  their  allegiance  to  Rome,  in  contrast  with  those 
which  rejected  the  Reformation.  "Once  risen  into  this  divine 
white  heat  of  temper,  were  it  only  for  a  season,  and  not  again, 
the  nation  is  thenceforth  considerable  through  all  its  remaining 
history.  What  immensities  of  dross  and  cryptopoisonous  mat- 
ter will  it  not  burn  out  of  itself  in  that  high  temperature  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years !  Witness  Cromwell  and  his  Puritans 
making  England  habitable,  even  under  the  Charles-Second 
terms,  for  a  couple  of  centuries  more.  Nations  are  benefited, 
I  beheve,  for  ages,  for  being  thrown  once  into  divine  white  heat 
in  this  manner;  and  no  nation  that  has  not  had  such  divine 
paroxysms  at  any  time  is  apt  to  come  to  much."  "Austria, 
Spain,  Italy,  France,  Poland  —  the  offer  of  the  Reformation  was 
made  everywhere,  and  it  is  curious  to  see  what  has  become  of 
the  nations  that  would  not  hear  it.    In  all  countries  were  some 

*  History  of  England  (Harpers'  ed.),  i.  45. 


432  THE    REFORMATION 

that  accepted ;  but  in  many  there  were  not  enough,  and  the  rest, 
slowly  or  swiftly,  with  fatal,  difficult  industry,  contrived  to  burn 
them  out.  Austria  was  once  full  of  Protestants,  but  the  hide- 
bound Flemish-Spanish  Kaiser-element  presiding  over  it,  obsti- 
nately for  two  centuries,  kept  saying,  'No;  we,  with  our  dull, 
obstinate,  Cimburgis  under-lip,  and  lazy  eyes,  with  our  ponder- 
ous Austrian  depth  of  Habituality,  and  indolence  of  Intellect, 
we  prefer  steady  darkness  to  uncertain  new  Light ! '  and  all 
men  may  see  where  Austria  now  is.  Spain  still  more;  poor 
Spain  going  about  at  this  time  making  its  'pronunciamentos.'" 
"Italy  too  had  its  Protestants,  but  Italy  killed  them  —  managed 
to  extinguish  Protestantism.  Italy  put  up  with  practical  lies 
of  all  kinds,  and,  shrugging  its  shoulders,  preferred  going  into 
Dilettantism  and  the  Fine  Arts.  The  Italians,  instead  of  the 
sacred  service  of  Fact  and  Performance,  did  Music,  Painting, 
and  the  like,  till  even  that  has  become  impossible  for  them; 
and  no  noble  nation,  sunk  from  virtue  to  virtu,  ever  offered  such 
a  spectacle  before."  "But  sharpest-cut  example  is  France,  to 
which  we  constantly  return  for  illustration.  France,  with  its 
keen  intellect,  saw  the  truth,  and  saw  the  falsity,  in  those  Prot- 
estant times,  and,  with  its  ardor  of  generous  impulse,  was  prone 
enough  to  adopt  the  former.  France  was  within  a  hair's  breadth 
of  becoming  actually  Protestant;  but  France  saw  good  to  mas- 
sacre Protestantism,  and  end  it  in  the  night  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
1572."  "The  Genius  of  Fact  and  Veracity  accordingly  withdrew, 
was  staved  off,  got  kept  away  for  two  hundred  years.  But  the 
Writ  of  Summons  had  been  served;  Heaven's  messenger  could 
not  stay  away  forever;  no,  he  returned  duly,  with  accounts  run 
up,  on  compound  interest,  to  the  actual  hour,  in  1792 ;  and  then, 
at  last,  there  had  to  be  a  'Protestantism,'  and  we  know  of  what 
kind  that  was."^ 

Exception  may,  perhaps,  be  taken  to  some  particulars  in  the 
foregoing  extract ;  but  still  the  spectacle  of  the  physical  power, 
the  industry  and  thrift,  the  intelligence,  good  government,  and 
average  morality  of  the  Protestant  nations,  in  the  period  con- 
sidered, is  in  the  highest  degree  significant  and  impressive. 

The  influence  of  Protestantism  upon  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty is  one  point  of  importance  in  the  present  inquiry.     Since 

*  Hist,  of  Frederick  the  Second  (Harpers'  ed.),  i-  202  seq. 


PROTESTANTISM   AND   LIBERTY  433 

Protestantism  involves  an  assertion  of  the  rights  of  the  individual 
in  the  most  momentous  of  all  concerns,  we  should  expect  that 
its  effect  would  be  generally  favorable  to  liberty.  In  consider- 
ing this  question,  it  is  proper  to  glance  at  the  political  conse- 
quences of  the  Reformation/ 

The  first  period  after  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation 
(1517-1556)  is  marked  by  the  rivahy  of  Francis  I.  and  Charles 
V.  Neither  espoused  the  Protestant  cause;  but  their  mutual 
enmity  left  it  room  to  exist  and  to  develop  its  strength.  Not- 
withstanding the  religious  division,  a  new  energy  and  vitality 
were  infused  into  the  constituent  parts  of  the  German  Empire, 
The  second  period  (1556-1603)  is  signalized  by  the  revolt  of  the 
Netherlands.  France,  a  kingdom  divided  against  itself,  was 
reduced  for  a  time  to  a  subordinate  position.  Spain  and  Eng- 
land were  now  the  contending  powers;  the  Protestant  interest 
in  Europe  being  led  by  Elizabeth,  and  the  CathoUc  interest  being 
marshaled  under  Philip  II.  Elizabeth  herself  was  jealous  of  her 
prerogative  and  had  no  love  for  popular  rights ;  but  the  Protes- 
tant party  was,  nevertheless,  identified  with  the  cause  of  liberty, 
and  the  Roman  CathoHc  party  with  poHtical  absolutism.  She 
was  obliged,  for  her  own  safety,  to  give  aid  to  the  insurgents  in 
the  Netherlands  and  in  Scotland.  During  her  long  reign,  in 
England  itself,  under  the  inspiring  influence  of  Protestantism, 
there  was  an  agitation  of  constitutional  questions,  which  au- 
gured well  for  the  future.  The  great  Protestant  commercial 
Repubhc  of  Holland  arose,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  sea.  In  the 
third  period  (1603-1648)  France,  under  Henry  IV.,  for  a  while 
regains  its  natural  position  in  Europe,  but  loses  it  by  his  untimely 
death.  England,  on  the  contrary,  under  the  Stuarts,  with  their 
reactionary  ecclesiasticism  and  subserviency  to  Spain,  sacrifices 
in  great  part  her  poUtical  influence.  It  is  the  era  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War;  at  first  a  civil  war  of  Austria  against  Bohemia; 
then  acquiring  wider  dimensions  by  the  conquest  of  the  Palati- 
nate ;  and  finally,  upon  the  renewal  of  the  contest  between  Spain 
and  the  Netherlands  in  1621,  interesting  all  Europe.  The  re- 
stored cooperation  and  religious  sympathy  of  Austria  and  Spain 
involved  peril  not  only  for  Protestantism,  but  for  the  balance  of 
power  in  Europe,  which  was  now  an  object  of  pursuit.     France, 

*  Heeren,  Historical  Treatises,  Oxford,  1836.  The  chronological  divisions  of 
Heeren  are  followed  above. 


434  THE   REFORMATION 

resuming  its  position  under  the  guidance  of  Richelieu,  joined 
hands  with  Sweden  in  lending  support  to  the  German  Protestants. 
Sweden,  by  the  part  which  it  took  in  this  great  war,  and  by  the 
treaty  which  followed  it,  acquired  a  poUtical  standing  which  it 
had  not  before  possessed.  By  this  war,  the  northern  powers 
were  brought  into  connection  with  the  rest  of  Europe,  so  that 
Europe,  for  the  first  time,  formed  one  political  system.^  The 
treaty  of  Westphaha  is  the  monument  of  this  event.  It  estab- 
hshed  a  balance  of  power  and  terms  of  peace  between  the  reU- 
gious  parties  in  Germany.  During  the  fourth  period  (1648-1702), 
Louis  XIV.  appears  as  the  champion  of  absolutism,  and  WilUam 
III.  comes  forward  as  the  leader  of  Protestantism  and  of  the 
cause  of  Uberty.  Under  his  auspices,  constitutional  freedom  is 
finally  established  in  England.  Prussia,  which  began  its  politi- 
cal career  at  the  Reformation,  rose  in  importance  under  "the 
Great  Elector"  (1640-1688),  and  at  length  took  the  place  of 
Sweden  as  the  first  of  the  northern  powers.  It  was  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  during  the  reign  of  the  Stuarts,  that  the  Enghsh 
colonies  in  North  America  were  planted,  and  the  foundations 
were  laid  for  the  future  Republic  of  the  United  States,  Without 
the  victory  of  constitutional  liberty  in  England,  and  without  the 
pohtical  example  of  Holland,  the  North  American  Republic 
could  not  have  arisen.  Among  the  pohtical  effects  of  the 
Reformation  must  be  reckoned  the  upbuilding  of  Sweden  and  of 
Prussia.  But  when  we  are  inquiring  into  the  influence  of  Prot- 
estantism upon  pohtical  hberty,  it  can  be  said  with  truth  that 
the  Reformation  made  the  free  Netherlands;  the  Reformation 
made  free  England,  or  was  an  essential  agent  in  this  work;  the 
Reformation  made  the  free  RepubUc  of  America.  "The  greatest 
part  of  British  America,"  says  De  Tocqueville,  "was  peopled  by 
men  who,  after  having  shaken  off  the  authority  of  the  Pope, 
acknowledged  no  other  religious  supremacy.  They  brought  with 
them  into  the  New  World  a  form  of  Christianity  which  I  cannot 
better  describe  than  by  styUng  it  a  democratic  and  republican 
reUgion.  This  contributed  powerfully  to  the  establishment  of 
a  repubhc  and  a  democracy  in  public  affairs;  and  from  the  be- 
ginning, pohtics  and  religion  contracted  an  alhance  which  has 
never  been  dissolved."  ^  The  town  system  and  the  "  town  spirit," 
in  which  this  sagacious  writer  recognizes  the  germ  of  our  pohtical 

*  Heeren,  p.  88.  *  Democracy  in  America,  i.  ch.  xvii. 


PROTESTANTISM  AND  LIBERTY  435 

institutions,  stood  in  intimate  connection  with  the  control  of 
the  laity  in  Church  affairs,  and  with  the  rehgious  polity  of  the 
early  colonists.  It  is  true,  as  this  same  writer  has  remarked, 
that  the  Roman  Catholic  system  is  not  unfriendly  to  democracy, 
in  a  certain  sense  of  the  term ;  in  the  sense  of  an  equaUty  of  con- 
dition. But  this  equahty  of  conch tion  is  the  result  of  a  common 
subjection  of  the  high  and  the  low  to  the  priesthood;  and  it  is 
attended,  therefore,  with  two  dangers:  first,  that  a  habit  of 
mind  will  be  formed,  which  is  unfavorable  to  personal  indepen- 
dence, and  therefore  to  the  maintenance  of  pohtical  freedom; 
and  secondly,  that  the  ecclesiastical  rulers  will  be  impelled 
to  fortify  their  sway  by  an  alUance  with  absolutism  in  the 
State. 

In  opposition  to  the  claim  that  Protestantism  is  friendly  to 
religious  hberty,  an  appeal  is  sometimes  made  to  facts.  It  is 
said  that  the  history  of  Protestant  States  contains  many  in- 
stances of  rehgious  intolerance  and  persecution.  This  must  be 
conceded.  The  first  effect  of  the  Reformation  was  to  augment 
the  power  of  princes.  The  clergy  stood  in  an  altered  relation  to 
the  civil  authority,  and  were  deprived  of  a  shield  which  had  given 
them  a  measure  of  protection  against  its  encroachments.  The 
old  idea  that  there  should  be,  in  a  political  community,  substan- 
tial uniformity  in  the  profession  of  rehgion  and  in  worship,  was  at 
first  prevalent,  and  has  slowly  been  abandoned.  CathoUc  has 
been  persecuted  by  Protestant  among  Protestants,  Lutheran 
has  been  persecuted  by  Calvinist,  and  Calvinist  by  Lutheran; 
Puritan  by  Churchman,  and  Churchman  by  Puritan.  Penal 
laws  against  Catholics,  or  against  the  exercise  of  Cathohc  wor- 
ship, have  existed  in  most  Protestant  countries.  Much  can  be 
said  in  defense  of  such  enactments  at  the  time  of  the  CathoHc 
Reaction,  when  Roman  Catholics  were  banded  together  in  Europe 
for  the  forcible  destruction  of  the  Protestant  rehgion.  At  that 
period,  the  Jesuit  order  instigated  Cathohc  rulers  in  different 
countries  to  multipUed  acts  of  violence  against  their  Protestant 
subjects.  Moreover,  the  doctrine  was  preached  that  it  is  lawful 
for  subjects  to  revolt  against  heretical  sovereigns  and  to  dethrone 
them.  Protestant  rulers  might  naturally  apprehend  danger  from 
those  who  acknowledged  a  foreign  jurisdiction,  the  hmits  of 
which  were  not  defined,  but  which  was  often  asserted  to  override 
the  obHgation  of  obedience  to  the  civil  authority.    The  expul- 


436  THE   REFORMATION 

sion  of  the  Jesuits  from  Catholic,  even  more  than  from  Protestant 
countries,  partly  on  political  grounds,  in  the  last  century,  is  not 
to  be  deemed  an  act  of  rehgious  persecution ;  any  more  than  the 
entire  abolition  of  that  Order  by  Clement  XIV.  in  1773.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  not  imfrequently,  in  times 
past,  penal  laws  against  Roman  Catholics  or  their  worship  have 
been  framed  on  other  than  poUtical  grounds.  The  fact  that 
they  acknowledge  some  other  authority  in  rehgion  than  the 
Bible,  or  that  their  rites  are  considered  idolatrous,  has  been  the 
real  and  the  avowed  reason  for  enactments  of  this  character. 
Let  it  be  observed,  however,  of  these  and  other  instances  of  re- 
ligious intolerance,  which  stain  the  annals  of  Protestantism,  that 
even  by  the  concession  of  its  adversaries,  they  are  incongruous 
with  its  principles  and  with  its  true  spirit.  What  is  the  charge 
commonly  made  against  Protestants  ?  That,  while  claiming  lib- 
erty for  themselves  and  a  right  of  private  judgment,  they  have 
at  times  proved  themselves  ready  to  deny  these  privileges  to 
Catholics  and  to  one  another.  In  a  word,  they  are  charged  with 
inconsistency,  with  infidehty  to  their  own  theory.  The  charge 
is  equivalent  to  the  admission  that  the  genius  of  Protestantism 
is  adverse  to  intolerance  and  demands  hberty  of  conscience.  If 
this  be  true,  then  we  should  expect  that  the  force  of  logic,  and 
the  moral  spirit  inherent  in  the  Protestant  system,  would  even- 
tually work  out  their  legitimate  results.  This  we  find  to  be  the 
fact.  Among  Protestant  nations  there  has  been  a  growing  sense 
of  obligation  to  respect  conscience  and  to  abstain  from  the  use 
of  coercion  in  niatters  of  religious  faith.  How  does  an  enlight- 
ened Protestant  look  upon  the  records  of  religious  intolerance 
in  the  past,  among  professed  disciples  of  the  Reformation  ?  He 
does  not  justify  acts  of  this  nature;  he  reprobates  or  deplores 
them.  He  acknowledges  that  they  were  wrong;  that  deeds  of 
this  kind,  if  done  now,  would  deserve  abhorrence,  and  that  the 
guilt  of  those  who  were  concerned  in  them  is  only  mitigated  by 
their  comparative  ignorance.  This  prevalent  feeling  among  Prot- 
estants at  the  present  day  indicates  the  true  genius  and  the  ulti- 
mate operation  of  the  system.  Protestants  abjure  the  principles 
on  which  the  codes  of  intolerance  were  framed.  How  is  it  with 
their  opponents  ?  It  is  true  that  thousands  of  Roman  Catholics 
would  declare  themselves  opposed  to  these  measures  which  the 
Protestant  condemns.    Their  humane  feehngs  would  be  shocked 


PROTESTANT   INTOLERANCE  437 

at  a  proposition  to  revive  the  dungeon  and  the  fagot  as  instru- 
ments for  crushing  dogmatic  error  or  an  obnoxious  ritual.  But 
the  authorities  of  the  Church  of  Rome  do  not  profess  any  com- 
punction for  the  employment  of  these  instruments  or  coercion 
in  past  ages;  nor  do  they  repudiate  the  principles  from  which 
persecution  arose  and  on  which  it  was  justified.  So  far  from 
this,  one  of  the  pestilent  errors  of  the  age,  which  is  thought 
worthy  of  special  denunciation  from  the  Chair  of  Peter,  is  the 
doctrine  of  liberty  of  conscience/  The  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew and  the  fires  of  Smithfield  will  cease  to  be  justly  chargeable 
upon  the  Church  of  Rome  when  this  Church  authoritatively  dis- 
avows and  condemns  the  principle  of  coercing  the  conscience 
and  of  inflicting  penalties  upon  what  is  judged  to  be  reUgious 
error,  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  these  and  of  a  long  catalogue 
of  like  cruelties. 

If  the  true  tendency  of  Protestantism  has  evinced  itself  as 
friendly  to  reHgious  and  civil  hberty,  the  Reformation  has  never- 
theless not  fostered  an  undue  Ucense  and  revolutionary  disorder. 
The  modern  history  of  England  and  of  the  United  States  exhibits 
the  gradual  and  wholesome  growth  of  free  political  institutions. 
With  comparatively  httle  bloodshed,  English  liberty  went 
through  the  crisis  in  which  it  won  its  victory,  and  embodied 
itself  in  the  organic  law.  In  recent  times  it  is  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic lands,  in  the  Old  World  and  in  the  New  —  France,  Spain, 
Italy,  Mexico,  the  South  American  States  —  which  have  been 
the  theater  of  most  frequent  revolutions. 

*  In  the  Encyclical  Letter  of  Piiis  IX.  (December  8,  1864),  addressed  to  all 
Roman  Catholic  bishops,  the  opinion  is  denounced  as  erroneous  and  most  per- 
nicious that  "liberty  of  conscience  and  of  worship  is  the  right  of  every  man  ;  and 
that  this  right  ought,  in  every  well-governed  state,  to  be  proclaimed  and  asserted 
by  law."  The  Encyclical  of  Pope  Gregory  XVI.  is  quoted,  in  which  this  opinion 
is  called  an  insanity —  "deliramentum."  It  is  among  the  errors  which  Pius 
IX.  declared  are  to  be  abhorred,  shunned,  as  the  contagion  of  a  pestilence.  This 
figure  of  a  contagion  or  a  plague  has  always  been  used  as  a  description  of  heresy, 
and  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  treatment  of  heretics ;  with  the  difference  that 
in  this  case  the  disease  was  held  to  be  guilty,  and  deserving  of  extreme  penalties. 
The  Syllabus  of  Pius  IX.,  connected  with  the  Encyclical  (x.  78),  condemned,  in 
countries  where  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  established  faith,  the  allowance  to 
others  than  Catholics  to  "enjoy  the  public  exercise  of  their  own  worship."  The 
Syllabus  (x.  79)  denounced  as  corrupting  the  opinion  that  civil  liberty  should  be 
granted  to  every  mode  of  worship,  and  that  there  should  be  freedom  of  speech 
and  of  the  press,  with  regard  to  religion.  The  Dublin  Review  (Jan.  1872,  p.  2) 
speaks  of  the  opposition  of  liberal  Catholics  to  what  is  called  "persecution;  i.e., 
the  laws  enacted  and  enforced,  for  repression  of  heresy,  during  the  ages  of  faith." 
The  Review  adds,  "Now  it  is  undeniable  that  for  the  existence  of  such  laws  the 
Church  is  mainly  responsible." 


438  THE   REFORMATION 

We  turn  to  the  influence  which  the  Reformation  has  exerted 
upon  the  intellect,  or  its  relation  to  Uterature  and  science.  Ref- 
erence is  frequently  made  by  polemical  writers  on  the  Catholic 
side  to  complaints  which  Erasmus  uttered,  especially  in  the  last 
twelve  years  of  his  life,  respecting  the  diminished  interest  in 
literature,  which  he  attributed  to  the  deleterious  agency  of  Prot- 
estantism. The  statements  of  Erasmus  at  that  time,  when  his 
feelings  were  embittered,  are  to  be  received  with  allowance.  Yet 
it  is  true  that  there  was  a  period  when  the  studies  in  which  Eras- 
mus and  the  Humanists  took  special  delight  were  regarded  with 
a  less  lively  interest,  and  that  this  may  be  set  down  as  an  effect 
of  the  Lutheran  movement.  It  is  the  ordinary  complaint  of 
men  of  letters  that  in  times  of  public  agitation  concerning  the 
highest  interests  of  mankind,  grammar  and  rhetoric  are  neglected. 
Even  the  true  interests  of  learning  in  such  eras  may  suffer  a  tem- 
porary loss.  In  the  old  age  of  Erasmus,  the  minds  of  men  were 
intensely  absorbed  in  religious  investigation  and  controversy; 
and,  as  a  natural  result,  purely  literary  pursuits  were  for  a  while, 
in  a  degree  harmful  to  them,  eclipsed  by  other  and  more  exciting 
studies. 

In  Spain  Protestantism  was  trampled  out  and  the  Catholic 
system  had  unlimited  sway.  The  golden  age  of  Spanish  litera- 
ture, when  the  most  celebrated  authors  —  Cervantes,  Lope  de 
Vega,  Calderon  —  flourished,  dates  from  the  middle  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  This  may  seem  to  speak  well  for  the  ecclesiastical 
system  to  which  the  Spanish  people  were  subjected.  But  this, 
if  it  was  the  blossoming,  was  also  the  expiring  era  of  Spanish 
letters.  A  deathlike  lethargy,  the  inevitable  result  of  supersti- 
tion and  ecclesiastical  tyranny,  was  creeping  over  the  nation. 
This  decline  of  the  Spanish  intellect,  and  the  causes  which  pro- 
duced it,  have  been  well  described  by  the  Historian  of  Spanish 
literature.  "That  generous  and  manly  spirit,"  says  Ticknor, 
"which  is  the  breath  of  intellectual  life  to  any  people,  was  re- 
strained and  stifled.  Some  departments  of  literature,  such  as 
forensic  eloquence  and  eloquence  of  the  pulpit,  satirical  poetry, 
and  elegant  didactic  prose,  hardly  appeared  at  all;  others,  like 
epic  poetry,  were  strangely  perverted  and  misdirected;  while 
yet  others,  like  the  drama,  the  ballads,  and  the  lighter  forms  of 
lyrical  verse,  seemed  to  grow  exuberant  and  lawless,  from  the 
very  restraints  imposed  on  the  rest;    restraints  which  in  fact 


ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  AND   LITERATURE  439 

forced  poetical  genius  into  channels  where  it  would  otherwise 
have  flowed  much  more  scantily  and  with  much  less  luxuriant 
results."  Of  the  books  published  in  this  period,  Ticknor  adds : 
they  "  bore  everywhere  marks  of  the  subjection  to  which  the  press 
and  those  who  wrote  for  it  were  alike  reduced.  From  the  abject 
title-pages  and  dedications  of  the  authors  themselves,  through 
the  crowd  of  certificates  collected  from  their  friends  to  establish 
the  orthodoxy  of  works  that  were  often  as  little  connected  with 
religion  as  fairy  tales,  down  to  the  colophon,  supplicating  pardon 
for  any  unconscious  neglect  of  the  authority  of  the  Church,  or 
any  too  free  use  of  classical  mythology,  we  are  continually  op- 
pressed with  painful  proofs,  not  only  how  completely  the  human 
mind  was  enslaved  in  Spain,  but  how  grievously  it  had  become 
cramped  and  crippled  by  the  chains  it  had  so  long  worn."  ^  These 
effects  were  not  due  solely  to  the  action  of  the  Inquisition  or  of 
the  despotic  civil  government,  but  to  that  superstitious  habit  of 
the  nation,  that  imique  mingling  of  religion  and  chivalrous  loy- 
alty to  the  king,  which  rendered  this  whole  system  of  intellectual 
tyranny  possible.  It  was  this  perversion  of  natural  feeling  which 
moved  even  Lope  de  Vega  and  Cervantes  to  exult  when  six  hun- 
dred thousand  industrious  and  unoffending  Moors  were  driven 
out  of  their  native  country.^  The  same  stern  censors  who  visited 
with  death  the  least  taint  of  heresy  tolerated  a  drama  more  im- 
moral than  it  had  ever  been  before.  The  willing  submission  of 
the  people  to  the  yoke  of  the  Inquisition  extinguished  the  last 
remaining  sparks  of  independence  and  of  intellectual  freedom. 
As  we  approach  the  conclusion  of  the  seventeenth  century,  "  the 
Inquisition  and  the  despotism  seem  to  be  everywhere  present  and 
to  have  cast  their  blight  over  everything."  ^ 

The  history  of  the  Italian  people  had  been  of  such  a  character 
that  a  degradation  like  that  which  befell  Spain  could  not  happen 
to  Italy.  Yet,  from  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  litera- 
ture declined,  and  the  intellectual  vigor  of  the  nation  appeared 
to  waste  away.^  The  destruction  of  republican  liberty  and  the 
dreadful  calamities  under  which  the  country  had  suffered  during 
the  half-century  which  followed  the  invasion  of  Charles  VIII. 
are  partly  responsible  for  this  result.     The  Spanish  dominion, 

*  History  of  Spanish  Literature,  i.  470.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  467. 

'  Ibid.,  iii.  208.      See,  also,  Cambridge  Modern  History,  iii  :  544  seq. 

*  Sismondi,  Hist,  des  Republ.  Ital.,  xvi.  217  seq.  Hist,  of  Lit.  in  Southern 
Europe,  i.  ch.  xvi. 


440  THE   REFORMATION 

which  was  extended  over  a  great  part  of  the  peninsula,  was  fatal 
to  all  free  and  manly  exertion.  But  the  Church,  stimulated  by 
the  spirit  of  the  Catholic  Reaction,  contributed  directly  to  the 
repression  of  that  mental  activity  and  power,  which  had  made 
Italy  the  pioneer  for  other  nations  in  the  path  of  culture  and 
learning.  In  this  long  period,  extending  through  the  seventeenth 
century,  only  one  great  name  —  that  of  Tasso,  who  published  his 
principal  work  in  1581  —  appears;  and  Tasso  is  not  a  poet  of  the 
first  order.  Art  revived,  for  a  time,  in  the  school  of  the  Caracci ; 
but  Art,  too,  had  passed  its  meridian,  and  its  glory  was  departing. 
The  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century  are  called  by  the  Italians 
the  "Seicentisti,"  a  term  which  carries  with  it  an  association  of 
inferiority.  In  this  period  there  abounded  what  the  Italians 
aptly  name  dilettantism;  an  indication  that  a  literature  has 
entered  into  the  period  of  decay.  The  zeal  for  classical  learning 
had  grown  cold.  The  little  regard  felt  even  for  perfection  of 
literary  form  is  illustrated  by  such  a  work  —  which  was  one  of 
the  principal  historical  productions  of  the  time  —  as  the  Annals 
of  Baronius.^  Yet  in  two  directions  signs  of  a  fresh  intellectual 
energy  appeared.  A  class  of  philosophers  arose,  who  renounced 
the  authority  of  Aristotle,  and  plunged  into  bold  speculations 
upon  the  nature  of  the  universe.  This  tendency  was  checked 
by  the  authorities  of  the  Church.  Giordano  Bruno  was  carried 
to  Rome  and  burned  at  the  stake,  in  1600.  There  was,  however, 
a  curiosity  for  physical  research,  which  kept  within  sober  limits, 
and  promised  the  best  fruits  to  science.  But  the  heavy  hand  of 
the  Inquisition  was  laid  upon  these  attractive  studies.  The  per- 
secution of  Galileo  did  not  crush  them ;  they  continued  for  a  long 
time  to  be  the  chief  province  in  which  the  Italian  mind  was  dis- 
tinguished; but  that  event  checked  and  discouraged  them. 
Galileo,  a  man  of  genius,  whose  eminence  as  a  discoverer  in  sci- 
ence had  been  well  earned,  was  directed  by  Pope  Paul  V.  in  1616, 
through  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  to  give  up  the  doctrine  of  the 
earth's  motion  round  the  sun,  to  teach  it  no  more,  and  to  write 
no  more  on  the  subject.^    At  the  same  time,  the  Congregation  of 

*  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  i.  496. 

^  A.  Von  Reumont,  Beitrdge  z.  ital.  Geschichte,  i.  30.3-425  (Galilei  u.  Rom.). 
Von  Reumont  was  a  learned  Catholic  scholar.  See,  also,  The  Private  Life  of  Galileo 
(London,  1870).  The  prohibition  of  Paul  V.  was:  "Ut  opinionem,  quod  sol  sit 
centrum  mundi  et  immobilis,  et  terra  moveatur,  om.nino  relinquat,  nee  eam  de 
cetero  quovis  modo  teneat,  doceat,  aut  defendat  verbo  aut  scriptis."  Von  Reu- 
mont, p.  317. 


BRUNO   AND   GALILEO  441 

the  Inquisition  declared  this  opinion  to  be  heretical.  Coper- 
nicus was  a  Roman  Catholic  and  had  dedicated  his  book  to  Paul 
III. ;  but  orthodoxy  had  now  grown  more  timid  and  jealous  of 
scientific  researches.  For  fifteen  years  Galileo  abstained  from 
publishing  anything  further  on  the  subject;  but  in  1632  he  put 
forth  his  Dialogues  relative  to  the  two  cosmical  systems  of 
Ptolemffius  and  Copernicus;  having  previously  taken  the  pre- 
caution to  submit  it  to  ecclesiastical  censorship  at  Rome  and 
at  Florence.  This  publication,  notwithstanding  the  former 
injunction  laid  upon  him,  was  the  occasion  of  his  subsequent 
troubles.  The  old  philosopher  was  obliged  to  repair  to  Rome 
and  answer  before  the  Tribunal  of  the  Inquisition.  Pope  Urban 
VIII.  insisted  that  the  obnoxious  opinion  must  be  forbidden,  as 
contrary  to  the  Scriptures.^  The  explanations  of  Galileo,  that 
he  did  not  intend  to  violate  the  former  prohibition,  and  that  he 
had  presented  the  Copernican  doctrine  only  as  an  hypothesis, 
were  of  no  avail.  He  was  required  to  abjure  this  doctrine  on 
his  knees  as  false,  and  was  sentenced  to  imprisonment  during  the 
Pope's  pleasure.  Although  he  was  not  shut  up  in  a  cell,  but  was 
permitted  to  reside  with  friends,  and  in  his  own  villa,  he  was  still 
subjected  to  uncomfortable  and  humiliating  restrictions,  and  to 
the  repeated  exercise  of  an  annoying  surveillance.  His  aged 
limbs  were  not  stretched  upon  the  rack ;  but  there  was  a  moral 
torture  in  being  forced  to  deny  what  he  believed  to  be  the  truth. 
Of  the  deep  distress  which  this  inexorable  demand  occasioned 
him  we  have  ample  proof.^  It  is  true  that  personal  enmities 
—  the  hatred  of  Galileo's  scientific  enemies,  the  feeling  of  the 
Barberini  towards  the  Medici  —  had  an  agency  in  the  proceed- 
ings against  Galileo,  and  that  the  Pope  imagined  himself  to  be 
covertly  ridiculed  in  the  condemned  Dialogue ;  but  these  hostile 
influences  would  have  been  powerless,  had  not  a  prevailing  spirit 
of  intolerance  been  ready  to  lend  itself  to  the  persecution.  Much 
is  said,  by  a  class  of  writers,  of  the  "imprudence"  of  Galileo  in 
attempting  to  harmonize  his  doctrine  with  Scripture,  and  in 
entering  at  all  into  the  province  of  exegesis.  But  the  most  that 
he  did  in  this  way  was  to  affirm  that  the  Bible  accommodates  its 
language  to  common  notions  and  does  not  aim  to  teach  scientific 

*  Von  Remnont,  p.  380. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  393.  Whewell  entirely  errs  in  what  he  says  of  the  mood  of 
Galileo  —  as  if  these  events  were  not  felt  by  him  to  be  serious.  History  of  the 
Inductive  Sciences,  i.  303  seq. 


442  THE   REFORMATION 

truth;  and  his  explanations  of  BibHcal  passages  were,  as  the 
Inquisition,  in  the  Act  of  Condemnation,  testifies,  in  answer  to 
objections  alleged  against  his  theory.*  He  must  not  suggest  a 
different  interpretation  of  the  Scriptural  passages  by  which  his 
adversaries  were  permitted  to  confute  his  opinion !  The  crime 
of  his  persecutors  is  not  extenuated,  but  aggravated,  if  their 
accusation  is  reduced  to  this  trivial  charge  of  imprudence. 

Of  all  the  countries  in  which  the  Reformation  failed,  France 
was  the  only  one  in  which  literature  was  not  blighted.  In  France, 
the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  is  considered  the  Augustan  age  of  letters. 
Three  elements  entered  into  the  creation  of  this  brilliant  era  — 
the  monarchy,  antiquity,  and  religion,^  The  splendor  of  the 
throne,  the  pride  awakened  by  the  conquests  of  the  King  and  by 
the  apparent  power  of  France,  kindled  the  intellect  of  the  nation.' 
The  monarch  was  the  sun,  and  the  train  of  authors  were  as  planets 
moving  about  him  and  basking  in  his  rays.  Moreover,  the  clas- 
sical tone  of  the  Renaissance  had  survived  in  full  power.  Most 
of  the  literary  men  looked  to  antiquity  for  their  models  and  rules 
of  composition.  With  the  poets  and  critics,  the  unities  of  the 
ancient  drama  were  laws  to  be  sacredly  observed.  If  we  look 
at  the  religious  element,  we  see  the  deep  traces  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  the  Jansenist  school,  from  which  emanated  the  Provincial 
Letters  of  Pascal,  pronounced  by  Voltaire  the  finest  specimen  of 
French  prose  in  this  whole  period.  The  great  figure  in  the  reli- 
gious world  is  Bossuet,  the  champion  of  Galilean  against  ultra- 
montane Catholicism,  and  the  author  of  the  most  liberal  and  the 
least  obnoxious  exposition  of  the  Catholic  creed.  The  com- 
parative freedom  of  thought  that  remained  in  France  was  an 
essential  condition  of  its  literary  activity.  In  the  last  days  of 
Louis  XIV.  literature  declined.  As  we  pass  beyond  his  reign, 
we  enter  the  era  in  which  a  skeptical  philosophy  prevailed,  and 

'  "And  that,  to  the  objections  put  forth  to  thee  at  various  times,  based  on 
and  drawn  from  Holy  Scripture,  thou  didst  answer,  commenting  upon  and  ex- 
plaining the  said  Scripture  after  thy  own  fashion."  Life,  p.  300.  The  letter 
of  Galileo  to  Castelli  {Life,  p.  74)  expounds  in  a  very  sensible  way  his  idea  of  the 
relation  of  the  Bible  to  science.  He  gave  great  offense  by  a  passage  in  another 
letter  in  which  he  said  that  he  had  heard  an  eminent  ecclesiastic  —  Cardinal 
Baronius  was  the  person  meant  —  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  had  designed  to  show 
us  how  to  get  to  heaven,  not  how  heaven  moves.  Von  Reumont,  p.  314.  But 
the  sentence  of  the  Inquisition  condemns  the  Copernican  doctrine  as  "false  and 
contrary  to  the  Holy  Scriptures." 

2  Villemain,   Lit.  au  Dix-huitieme  Siecle,  i.  2. 

*  Nisard,  Hist,  dc  la  Lit.  Fran<;..,  i.  ch.  vii.  and  p.  430. 


THE  CENSORSHIP  OF   BOOKS  443 

in  which  Hterature  was  divorced  not  only  from  the  Church,  but 
also  from  faith  in  the  Christian  Revelation. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  influence  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
after  the  Reformation,  upon  science  and  culture,  it  is  necessary 
to  take  into  view  the  systematic  censorship  of  books,  which  that 
Church  established,  and  the  literary  and  educational  influence  of 
the  Order  of  Jesuits.  In  1546  Charles  V.  obtained  from  the 
theological  faculty  of  Louvain  a  catalogue  of  publications  which 
the  people  were  to  be  prohibited  from  reading ;  his  design  being 
to  stop  the  progress  of  heresy  in  the  Netherlands.  His  example 
was  followed  by  Paul  IV.,  who  published,  in  1559,  a  list  of  the 
same  kind,  with  a  denunciation  of  penalties  against  all  who 
should  disregard  its  rigid  prohibitions.  Under  the  auspices  of 
the  Council  of  Trent  there  was  issued  by  the  authority  of  Pius 
IV.,  in  1564,  another  Prohibitory  Index,  which  has  since  been 
frequently  published  with  successive  enlargements.  The  Pro- 
hibitory Indexes  proscribe  authors  or  entire  works  without 
reservation ;  the  Expurgatory  Indexes,  whether  imited  with  these 
or  not,  specify  passages  to  be  expunged  or  altered.  The  Index 
of  1564  contained  ten  stringent  rules  respecting  forbidden  books, 
and  the  inspection  of  printing-offices  and  book  shops ;  to  which, 
on  various  occasions,  other  regulations  have  been  added. 

The  long  Prohibitory  Catalogue,  although  it  comprises  many 
of  the  principal  works  in  history,  general  literature,  and  philoso- 
phy, as  well  as  in  theology  and  morals,  which  have  been  pro- 
duced in  modern  times,  conveys  no  adequate  idea  of  the  power 
of  such  a  tyrannical  supervision  in  the  countries  where  it  was 
carried  out  with  rigor,  to  fetter  the  intellect  and  to  paralyze  its 
energies.*  Milton  introduces  into  the  "  Areopagitica,"  a  reminis- 
cence of  his  intercourse  with  the  learned  men  of  Italy,  who  "  did 
nothing  but  bemoan  the  servile  condition  into  which  learning 
amongst  them  was  brought ;  that  this  it  was  which  had  damped 
the  glory  of  Italian  wits;   that  nothing  had  there  been  written 

*  On  the  Index  Ltbrorum  Prohihitorum  (1870)  are  the  names  of  such  historians 
as  Hallam,  Burnet,  Hume,  Gibbon,  Mosheim,  Sismondi,  Bayle,  Prideaux,  Botta, 
Sarpi,  Ranke ;  of  such  philosophical  writers  as  Malebranche,  Spinoza,  Kant,  Locke, 
Bacon,  Des  Cartes,  Whately,  Cousin ;  of  publicists  like  Montesquieu  and  Grotius ; 
of  eminent  poets,  as  Ariosto  and  Milton.  The  writings  of  the  Reformers,  Prot- 
estant versions  of  the  Bible,  all  Protestant  catechisms,  creeds,  publications  of 
synodal  acts,  of  conferences  and  of  disputations,  liturgies ;  also  dictionaries  and 
lexicons  —  like  the  lexicon  of  Stephanus  —  unless  they  have  been  previously 
purged  of  heretical  passages,  are  prohibited  en  masse. 


444  THE   REFORMATION 

now,  these  many  years,  but  flattery  and  fustian.  There  it  was 
that  I  found  and  visited  the  famous  Gahleo  grown  old,  a  prisoner 
to  the  Inquisition,  for  thinlving  in  astronomy  otherwise  than  the 
Franciscan  and  Dominican  hcensers  thought."^ 

Violations  of  the  liberty  of  opinion  and  of  the  press  are  not 
exclusively  the  sins  of  Roman  Catholics.  In  Protestant  coun- 
tries, after  the  Reformation,  the  supervision  of  the  printing  and 
circulation  of  books  devolved  on  the  State.  A  teasing  and 
meddlesome  censorship,  and  sometimes  a  severe  penal  code, 
were  established  by  various  governments.  In  England,  in  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  printers  and  booksellers  were  restricted  by 
rigorous  enactments,  and  the  unportation  of  books  was  regulated 
by  proclamations  from  the  Council.  The  law  inflicted  penalties 
on  the  sale,  or  even  the  possession,  of  learned  works  of  Catholic 
theology.  In  some  cases  libraries  were  searched,  and  books, 
obnoxious  only  on  account  of  their  doctrines,  were  seized.  Whit- 
gift  caused  the  penal  rules  on  this  whole  subject  to  be  sharp- 
ened, and  exercised  vigilance  in  enforcing  them.  One  of  the 
charges  against  Laud  at  his  impeachment,  in  1644,  was  that  he 
had  suppressed  the  Geneva  Bible  and  other  books  in  which 
popery  was  attacked.  But  the  managers  of  the  impeachment 
coupled  with  this  charge  the  accusation  that  he  had  permitted 
to  be  introduced  and  sold  works  in  which  Arminian  and  Roman 
Catholic  opinions  were  countenanced.^  It  was  not  his  suppression 
of  books,  but  of  a  particular  class  of  books,  which  constituted 
his  offense.  In  the  same  year  Milton  dedicated  to  Parliament 
his  ringing  speech  for  the  Liberty  of  UnUcensed  Printing,  the 
"  Areopagitica,"  which  he  fitly  prefaced  by  Unes  from  Euripides, 
beginning :  — 

"This  is  true  liberty,  when  freeborn  men, 
Having  to  advise  the  pubUc,  may  speak  free, 
Which  he  who  can,  and  will,  deserves  high  praise.*" 

*  It  was  his  own  visit  to  Galileo  at  Arcetri  that  suggested  to  Milton  the  com- 
parison of  the  shield  of  Lucifer  to 

"the  moon,  whose  orb 

Through  optic  glass,  the  Tuscan  artist  views 
At  evening  from  the  top  of  Fesol4, 
Or  in  Valdarno,  to  descry  new  lands, 
Rivers  or  mountains,  in  her  spotty  globe." 

*  Neal,  History  of  the  Purians,  ii.  515  seq. 

*  One  of  Milton's  arguments  is  that  "the  infection,  which  is  from  books  of 
controversy  in  religion,"  is  more  dangerous  to  the  learned  than  to  the  ignorant  ; 
and  he  refers  to  the  acute  Arminius,  who  "was  perverted"  by  reading  "a  name- 
less discourse,  written  at  Delft."     It  is  curious  that  Milton,  as  his  treatise  on 


■   THE   PRESS   IN    PROTESTANT   LANDS  445 

But  even  Milton,  it  may  be  observed  here,  did  not  carry  his 
doctrine  of  hberty  of  conscience  so  far  as  to  lead  him  to  favor 
the  toleration  of  the  mass  and  other  ceremonies  of  Roman 
CathoUc  worship,  which,  as  being  idolatrous,  he  thought  should 
be  forbidden,^  ParUament,  in  the  Pm*itan  period,  passed 
severe  ordinances  and  laws  for  the  restraint  of  printing.^  But 
the  Restoration  renewed  the  extreme  severity  of  the  old  enact- 
ments, and  the  Licensing  Act  placed  all  printing  under  the 
control  of  the  government.  Under  the  judges  Scroggs  and 
Jeffries,  there  was  a  cruel  enforcement  of  the  hateful  provisions 
of  this  act.  It  was  not  until  after  the  Revolution,  when  Parlia- 
ment, in  1695,  refused  to  renew  this  measure,  that  the  censor- 
ship of  the  press  was  given  up  by  the  law  of  England.  There 
might  be  continued  persecution,  through  the  wide  extension 
given  to  the  law  of  libel;  but  there  was  a  gradual  progress 
towards  the  aboUtion  of  all  unjust  restrictions  upon  the  publica- 
tion of  printed  matter.  The  multiplying  of  newspapers  was  a 
practical  assertion  of  this  liberty.  Thus  it  appears  that  under 
Protestant  institutions,  although  the  freedom  of  discussion  and 
of  the  press  was  not  at  once  attained,  although  tyrannical  laws 
were  framed  and  executed,  the  tendency  has  still  been  in  the 
direction  of  an  emancipation  of  the  minds  of  men  from  this  as 
from  other  kinds  of  unjustifiable  restraint.  That  the  genius  of 
Protestantism  requires  this  Uberty  is  now  almost  universally 
conceded. 

From  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  education  in 
Catholic  countries  fell  very  much  into  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits. 
Among  the  members  of  this  society,  and  among  the  pupils  who 
were  trained  by  it,  there  is  included  a  long  list  of  men  who  are 
distinguished  for  services  rendered  to  science  and  learning. 
But,  generally  speaking,  it  is  in  mathematics,  physical  science, 
and  antiquarian  research  —  departments  standing  in  no  close 
relation  to  their  moral  and  dogmatic  system  —  that  they  have 
won  their  eminence.  The  Jesuit  Society  has  produced  acute 
writers  in  casuistry  and  polemical  theology,  such  men  as  Suarez 

Christian  Doctrine  proves,  himself  became  an  Arminian,  and  an  Arian  besides. 
When  he  pubUshed  Paradise  Lost,  in  1667,  he  had  some  difficulty  in  procuring 
a  license ;    partly  on  account  of  the  illustration,  in  the  first  book,  of  the  eclipse 

"with  fear  of  change 

Perplexes  monarchs." 
*  See  his  Tract,  Of  True  Religion,  Heresy,  Schism,  Toleration,  etc.  (1673). 
^  May,  Const-  History  of  England,  ii.  104. 


446  THE  REFORMATION 

and  Bellarmine.  But  it  has  accomplished  little  in  the  higher 
walks  of  Hterature  and  philosophy,  which  require  the  genial 
atmosphere  of  freedom :  and  the  effect  of  its  training,  as  a  rule, 
has  not  been  to  stimulate  and  fructify  the  mind,  and  to  put  it 
on  the  path  of  original  activity  and  production. 

In  all  Protestant  lands,  the  universal  diffusion  of  the  Bible 
in  the  venacular  tongues  has  proved  an  instrument  of  culture 
of  inestimable  value.  Apart  from  its  direct  reUgious  influence, 
the  Bible  has  carried  into  the  households,  even  of  the  humblest 
classes,  a  most  effective  means  of  mental  stimulation  and 
instruction.  By  its  history,  poetry,  ethics,  theology,  it  has 
expanded  the  intellect  of  common  men,  and  roused  them  to 
reflection  on  themes  of  the  highest  moment.  The  scene  which 
Burns  depicts  in  "The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night"  suggests  not 
only  the  rehgious  power  of  the  Bible  in  the  homes  of  the  poor, 
but  also  its  elevating  and  inspiring  influence  within  the  entire 
sphere  of  mental  action.  The  Church  of  Rome  has  never,  by  a 
general  prohibition,  interdicted  the  use  of  the  Bible  to  the  laity; 
but  it  has  done  httle  to  promote  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  ten 
Rules  relating  to  the  censorship  of  books,  which  emanated  from 
the  Council  of  Trent,  impose  severe  restrictions  upon  the  circu- 
lation and  reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular  languages. 
"Inasmuch,"  they  say,  "as  it  is  manifest  from  experience,  that 
if  the  Holy  Bible,  translated  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  be  indis- 
criminately allowed  to  every  one,  the  temerity  of  men  will  cause 
more  evil  than  good  to  arise  from  it ;  it  is,  on  this  point,  referred 
to  the  judgment  of  the  bishops  or  inquisitors,  who  may,  by  the 
advice  of  the  priest  or  confessor,  permit  the  reading  of  the  Bible, 
translated  into  the  vulgar  tongue  by  CathoUc  authors,  to  those 
persons  whose  faith  and  piety,  they  apprehend,  will  be  aug- 
mented, and  not  injured  by  it;  and  this  permission  they  must 
have  in  writing.  But  if  any  one  shall  have  the  presumption  to 
read  or  possess  it  without  such  written  permission,  he  shall  not 
receive  absolution  until  he  have  first  deUvered  up  such  Bible  to 
the  ordinary.  Booksellers,  however,  who  shall  sell,  or  otherwise 
dispose  of  Bibles  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  to  persons  not  having 
such  permission,  shall  forfeit  the  value  of  the  books,  to  be  ap- 
plied by  the  bishop  to  some  pious  use;  and  be  subjected  to  such 
other  penalties  as  the  bishop  shall  judge  proper,  according  to 
the  quality  of  the  offense.     But  regulars  shall  neither  read  nor 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   BIBLE  447 

purchase  such  Bibles  without  a  special  license  from  their  su- 
periors." ^  This  rule  fairly  indicates  the  policy  of  the  Church 
of  Rome  since  the  Tridentine  Council.  This  poUcy  had  its 
origin  after  the  movements  of  the  laity,  in  Romanic  countries, 
in  the  twelfth  century,  against  ecclesiastical  abuses,  when  the 
Waldenses  and  other  sects  resorted  to  the  Bible  and  encouraged 
the  reading  of  it.  In  England  the  opposition  to  WickUffe  had  a 
similar  effect  in  leading  the  authorities  of  the  Church  to  dis- 
countenance the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue.  The 
Jansenists,  Arnauld  and  his  associates,  advocated  a  more  free 
reading  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  laity ;  but  they  were  combated 
on  this  point,  as  on  other  pecuharities  of  their  system.  Even 
in  recent  times  fulminations  have  been  sent  forth  from  the  Vati- 
can against  Bible  societies ;  and  this  hostility  is  not  only  directed 
against  translations  made  by  Protestants,  but  against  the  un- 
restricted circulation  of  any  versions  in  the  language  of  the 
people.  Back  of  all  these  rules  and  prohibitions,  however, 
there  is  another  formidable  hindrance  in  the  way  of  the  general 
reading  of  the  Bible  among  Roman  Catholic  laymen.  It  arises 
from  the  doctrine  that  they  are  incapable  of  interpreting  it. 
In  the  early  ages  of  the  Church,  the  Scriptures  were  rendered 
into  the  languages  of  the  tribes  to  whom  the  Gospel  was  carried. 
The  Fathers  were  not  opposed  to  the  reading  of  them  by  the 
people.  Even  as  late  as  Gregory  I.  they  recommend  it.  But 
the  practice  began  to  fall  into  disuse  in  consequence  of  the 
prevalent  belief  that  laymen  are  incompetent  to  understand  it 
—  incapable  of  deciphering  its  meaning  for  themselves,  Prot- 
estant teachers,  on  the  contrary,  have  declared  that  the  Bible 
is  intelhgible  to  plain  men,  and  have  universally  inculcated  upon 
all  the  obhgation  to  read  it  habitually.  The  English  version 
and  the  translation  of  Luther  have  entered  into  the  intellectual 
hfe  of  the  nations  to  which  they  severally  belong,  with  an  ex- 
citing and  transforming  energy,  the  wholesome  effect  and  full 
extent  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  estimate.  To  say  nothing 
of  a  strictly  religious  influence,  if  we  could  subtract  from  the 
German  mind  the  effect,  regarded  only  from  an  intellectual 
point  of  view,  of  Luther's  Bible,  and  do  the  same  in  the  case  of 
the  authorized  English  version  in  its  relation  to  the  English- 
speaking  race,  how  incalculable  would  be  the  loss ! 

'  App.  i.  ad  Concil.  Trid.  De  lihris  prohib.  Reg.  iv.     The  rules  are  translated 
by  Mendham,  The  Literary  Policy  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  p.  63  seq. 


448  THE   REFORMATION 

The  effect  of  the  Reformation  upon  literature  in  England  is 
generally  understood.  The  age  of  EUzabeth,  the  era  of  Spenser 
and  Raleigh,  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  was  the  period 
in  which  the  ferment  caused  by  the  Reformation  was  at  its 
height,  and  when  Protestantism  estabUshed  its  supremacy  over 
the  EngUsh  mind.  That  Protestantism  was  a  hfe-giving  ele- 
ment in  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  eminent  authors  of  that 
and  of  the  following  ages  drew  their  inspiration,  admits  of  no 
reasonable  doubt.  We  have  only  to  imagine  that  the  reign  of 
Mary  and  her  reUgious  system  had  continued  through  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  we  shall  appreciate  the  incUspensable 
part  which  Protestantism  took  in  the  creation  of  that  great 
literary  epoch.  The  great  writers  of  the  EUzabethan  period 
have  been  called  "men  of  the  Renaissance,  not  men  of  the 
Reformation."  ^  A  brilliant  French  author  has  even  grouped 
them  together  under  the  title  of  the  "  Pagan  Renaissance."  ^ 
It  is  quite  true  that  they  derived  their  materials  largely  from 
the  poets  and  novehsts  of  Italy;  that  the  influence  of  the 
Italian  culture  is  manifest  in  their  works.  From  this  point 
of  view,  the  classification  just  mentioned  is  not  so  incorrect. 
Moreover,  the  Enghsh  writers  of  this  grand  era  were  true  to 
themselves;  they  are  marked  by  a  fresh  vigor  and  genuine 
naturalness.  At  the  same  time,  their  veneration  for  the  great 
truths  of  religion,  their  profound,  unaffected  faith,  are  equally 
conspicuous;  and  by  this  quaUty  they  are  distinguished  from 
the  school  of  the  Renaissance  in  southern  Europe.  The  same 
French  critic  to  whom  we  have  referred,  adverts,  in  another 
passage,  to  the  constant  influence  of  "the  grave  and  grand 
idea"  of  rehgion,  and  adds:  "In  the  greatest  prose  writers, 
Bacon,  Burton,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Raleigh,  we  see  the  fruits 
of  veneration,  a  settled  beUef  in  the  obscure  beyond;  in  short, 
faith  and  prayer.  Several  prayers  written  by  Bacon  are 
amongst  the  finest  known;  and  the  courtier,  Raleigh,  whilst 
writing  of  the  fall  of  empires,  and  how  the  barbarous  nations 
had  destroyed  this  grand  and  magnificent  Roman  Empire, 
ended  his  book  with  the  ideas  and  tone  of  a  Bossuet."  ^  It  is 
not  more  true  that  Shakespeare  rises  above  all  the  narrow  con- 

•  Matthew  Arnold,  Schools  and  Universities  on  the  Continent,  p.  154. 
^  Taine,  History  of  English  Literature,  i.  143  seq. 

»  i.  378.  The  passage  of  Raleigh  is  the  apostrophe,  beginning  :  "O,  eloquent, 
just,  and  mightie  Death  1 " 


LITERATURE   IN    ENGLAND   AND   GERMANY  449 

fines  of  sect,  than  that  his  dramas  reveal  a  deep  faith  in  a  super- 
natural order,  and  are  pervaded  with  the  fundamental  verities 
of  the  Christian  religion.  The  boldness  and  independence  of 
the  Elizabethan  writers,  their  fearless  and  earnest  pursuit  of 
truth,  and  their  solemn  sense  of  religion,  apart  from  all  asceti- 
cism and  superstition,  are  among  the  effects  of  the  Reformation/ 
This  is  equally  true  of  them  as  it  is  of  Milton  and  of  the  greatest 
of  their  successors.  Nothing  save  the  impulse  which  Protes- 
tantism gave  to  the  English  mind,  and  the  intellectual  ferment 
which  was  engendered  by  it,  will  account  for  the  Uterary  phe- 
nomena of  the  EUzabethan  times. 

The  Reformation  in  Germany  transferred  Uterary  activity 
from  the  South  to  the  North.^  Since  that  time,  the  literary 
achievements  on  the  Catholic  side  have  been,  in  comparison 
with  those  of  the  Protestants,  insignificant.  A  learned  Catholic 
scholar  has  stated  the  difficulty  which  he  experienced  in  finding 
Cathohc  names  worthy  of  note,  when  he  undertook  the  task  of 
describing  the  state  of  learning  in  Germany  in  the  period  after 
the  Reformation.^  He  attributes  this  intellectual  dearth  to  the 
methods  of  education  adopted  by  the  Jesuits,  who  obtained  so 
extensive  a  control  over  the  instruction  of  the  young.  In  the 
seventeenth  century,  theological  controversy  and  the  desolating 
effects  of  war  prevented  Germany  from  emulating  England  in 
the  path  of  science  and  Uterature.  But  the  eighteenth  century 
opens  with  the  illustrious  name  of  Leibnitz;  and  from  that 
time,  especially  from  the  middle  of  that  century,  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  German  mind  in  all  branches  of  human  knowledge 
have  surpassed  those  of  any  other  nation,  ancient  or  modern. 
Germany  has  earned  the  distinction  of  being  the  land  of  scholars. 
It  appears  that  in  England,  immecUately  after  the  Reformation, 
the  cause  of  learning  suffered  in  consequence  of  the  injury  done 
to  schools  by  the  confiscations  of  Henry  VIII.  and  by  the  rapac- 
ity of  his  courtiers  and  those  of  Edward.^  The  attention  given 
to  theological  cUsputes  in  the  Universities  tended  for  a  while  to 
the  same  result.     In  Germany,  most  of  the  Protestant  leaders 

'  A  just  view  of  this  matter  is  presented  by  Hazlitt,  Lectures  on  the  Dramatic 
Lit.  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth  (lect.  i.),  where  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  is 
eloquently  traced. 

^  Gervinus,  Gsch.  d.  poetisch.  National- Lit.,  Th.  iii.  20. 

'  DoUinger,  Vortrdge,  etc.  (Munich,  1872). 

*  Warton,  History  of  English  Poetry,  i.  §  xxxvi. ;  Arnold,  Schools  and  Univer- 
sities, etc.,  p.  153. 


450  THE   REFORMATION 

were  devoted  Humanists.  In  the  ferment  excited  at  first  by 
the  Wittenberg  Reform,  there  was  danger  that  science  and 
education  would  be  neglected;  and  of  this  danger  Melancthon 
was  painfully  sensible/  He  made  schools  an  object  of  earnest 
care.  For  his  services  in  this  direction  he  has  worn  since  the 
honorable  title  of  "Preceptor  of  Germany." 

In  no  Protestant  countries  "vyas  the  particular  effect  of  the 
Reformation  which  we  are  now  considering  more  striking  than 
in  Holland  and  in  Scotland.  Holland,  as  it  emerged  victorious 
from  its  struggle  with  Spain,  became  everywhere  famous  for 
the  number  and  erudition  of  its  scholars,  and  for  the  universal 
intelhgence  of  its  people.  In  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  Ley  den,  which  owed  its  University  to  the  victory 
which  it  gained  over  its  besiegers  in  1574,  was  the  most  renowned 
seat  of  learning  in  western  Europe.  Two  thousand  pupils 
resorted  to  it  at  one  time,  and  scholars  like  Scaliger  were  drawn 
into  the  ranks  of  its  teachers.  In  the  valor  of  its  inhabitants 
and  their  culture,  in  connection  with  the  diminutive  size  of  its 
territory,  Holland  resembled  the  Greece  of  ancient  times.  Even 
more  conspicuous  is  the  intellectual  influence  of  Protestantism 
upon  Scotland.  Holland  was  not  wanting  in  intellectual  ac- 
tivity before  the  Reformation ;  but  Scotland  owes  almost  every- 
thing to  the  religious  reform.  Before,  the  mass  of  the  people 
were  ignorant  and  in  a  state  of  servile  dependence  on  the  nobles. 
The  preaching  of  Knox  struck  a  deep  root  in  the  heart  of  the 
Scotch  commons.  When  the  nobles  faltered,  or  consulted  ex- 
pediency or  selfish  interest,  it  was  found  that  the  middling 
and  lower  orders  of  the  people,  who  had  embraced  the  Protestant 
doctrine,  could  not  be  managed,  but  were  steadfast  in  defense 
of  their  liberty  and  religion.^  The  freedom  of  Scotland,  its 
general  intelligence,  and  the  Hterary  eminence  which  a  great 
array  of  distinguished  names  in  science  and  letters  have  given 
it,  are  the  result  of  the  Reformation.  The  minds  of  men  were 
quickened  and  invigorated  by  the  discussion  of  reUgious  ques- 
tions. An  atmosphere  was  created  in  which  the  fruits  of  genius 
and  learning  have  appeared  in  abundance. 

*  The  anxiety  of  Melancthon  on  this  subject,  a  few  years  after  the  Lutheran 
movement  commenced,  and  the  efforts  in  behalf  of  education  to  which  he  was 
prompted,  are  described  by  Galle,  Charakteristik  Melancthons,  p.  119. 

^  This  effect  of  the  Reformation  is  well  set  forth  by  Mr.  Froude,  Short  Studies  on 
Great  Subjects,  p.  128  (The  Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  the  Scottish  Character). 


PROTESTANTISM   AND   PHILOSOPHY  451 

The  peculiar  character  of  the  Reformation  is  manifest  in 
its  influence  on  philosophy.  The  Scholastic  theology  and 
ethics  were  intertwined  with  the  system  of  Aristotle.  The  sub- 
version of  his  supremacy,  as  he  was  interpreted  and  as  his 
method  was  employed  by  the  Schoolmen,  involved  the  overthrow 
of  the  whole  fabric  which  they  had  constructed  by  his  aid,  and 
was  an  indispensable  means  to  this  end.  This  philosophical 
revolution  was  begun  by  the  Humanists,  and  consummated  at 
the  Reformation.  By  the  indirect  effect  of  Protestantism,  there 
arose  another  philosophical  method,  on  the  foundation  of  which 
the  modern  schools  of  metaphysics  rest. 

The  path  was  broken  for  the  assault  upon  the  Scholastic 
Aristotle,  by  the  pure  Aristotelians,  as  they  were  called;  those 
Italian  Humanists  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
who  set  up  the  ideas  which  they  professed  to  derive  from  the 
original  text  of  the  Stagirite,  against  the  Scholastic  interpreta- 
tions of  him.  The  rise  of  a  school  of  Platonists  was  not  with- 
out an  influence  in  the  same  direction.  The  Reformers  directly 
assaulted  the  principles  of  the  AristoteUan  ethics,  as  far  as  they 
were  embodied  in  the  Pelagian  theology,  and  hkewise  his  dia- 
lectical method  as  underlying  the  endless  subtleties  and  be- 
wildering casuistry  of  the  mediaeval  systems.  It  is  a  mistake, 
however,  to  suppose  that  Luther  was  absolutely  hostile  to 
philosophy.  His  declamation  against  Aristotle  is  on  the  grounds 
just  stated,  and  is  qualified  by  other  expressions  of  a  different 
tenor.^  Melancthon  was  more  and  more  impressed  with  the 
necessity  of  a  careful  and  thorough  training  for  ministers,  and  of 
building  up  the  study  of  philosophy  as  well  as  of  classical  lit- 
erature in  the  German  schools.  Accordingly  he  prepared  text- 
books on  the  basis  of  the  treatises  of  Aristotle,  which  long  held 
their  place.  Among  the  Protestant  theologians,  Aristotle,  in 
the  shape  in  which  he  was  now  studied,  regained  his  authority; 
so  that  when  Peter  Ramus  attacked  his  logical  system  and  en- 
deavored to  supplant  it,  the  new  scheme  was  considered  by  many, 
among  whom  was  Beza,  a  dangerous  innovation. 

The  ground  which  had  been  held  by  Aristotle  could  not  be 

*  "  I  would  willingly,"  he  said,  "keep  Aristotle's  books  on  logic,  rhetoric, 
and  poetics,  or  have  them  abridged,  for  they  can  be  read  with  profit,  and  exercise 
young  people  in  speaking  and  preaching  well ;  but  the  comments  and  minute  divi- 
sions had  better  be  left  off."  An  den  christl.  Adel.  (1520).  For  other  passages  from 
Luther,  of  a  like  tenor,  see  Gieseler,  i.  ii.  3,  §  48  n.  5. 


452  THE   REFORMATION 

left  unoccupied.  Philosophy  must  be  reconstructed.  Yet  a 
new  system  would  have  to  fight  its  way  to  acceptance;  for 
Aristotle,  notwithstanding  the  attacks  of  the  Humanists  and 
of  the  Reformers,  still  maintained  his  hold  in  the  Cathohc 
universities  —  in  Paris,  for  example,  and  in  the  universities 
of  Italy;  and  was  defended  as  the  prop  of  orthodox  theology. 
The  two  renovators  of  philosophy  are  Bacon  and  Des  Cartes. 
The  systems  of  both  are  indirectly  the  product  of  the  Refor- 
mation. Bacon  is  not  the  originator  of  a  new  method,  much 
less  of  a  new  metaphysic;  but  in  his  vigorous  assault  upon 
the  scientific  procedure  of  the  Schoolmen,  which  was  identi- 
fied with  the  name  of  Aristotle,  and  in  his  weighty  appeal 
against  the  authority  of  tradition  in  physical  study,  and 
in  behalf  of  independent  investigation  by  the  inductive  pro- 
cess, he  harmonized  with  the  spirit  and  evinced  the  influence 
of  Protestantism.  The  name  of  Des  Cartes  is  more  properly 
connected  with  the  new  method  which  characterizes  modern, 
as  distinguished  from  mediaeval  philosophy.^  In  the  Scholastic 
period,  philosophy  was  subservient  to  theology.  Philosophy 
had  its  task  set;  it  must  assume  the  truth  of  a  great  body  of 
propositions,  and,  as  far  as  it  was  able,  vindicate  them  on  ra- 
tional grounds.  As  a  consequence,  philosophy  and  theology 
were  mingled  together,  in  a  way  prejudicial  to  each.  The 
method  with  which  the  name  of  Des  Cartes  is  linked  is  utterly 
dissimilar;  first,  in  separating  philosophy,  as  a  distinct  depart- 
ment, from  theology;  secondly,  in  casting  out  all  assumptions, 
all  propositions  borrowed  from  other  sources,  all  authority, 
and  in  starting  with  the  mind's  own  primitive  intuitions,  on  the 
foundation  of  which,  with  the  aid  of  logic,  the  whole  super- 
structure is  reared.  The  simple  thesis,  "I  think,  therefore  I 
am,"  is  found,  it  may  be,  in  Augustine;  and  it  may  have  been 
derived  from  him;  but  the  originality  of  Des  Cartes  lies  in  his 
rejection  of  all  extraneous  and  incongruous  matter,  and  in  his 
placing  this  brief  but  pregnant  affirmation  in  the  forefront  of 
his  system.  On  this  foundation  he  seeks  to  construct  a  proof 
of  God,  of  the  soul's  distinct  existence,  and  of  its  immortality. 
Philosophy  thus  takes  nothing  for  granted,  is  no  longer  "the 
handmaid"  of  any  other  branch  of  knowledge,  but  brings  up 

*  Bouillier,  Hist,  de  la  Philosophie  Cartisienne  (2  vols.  1854)  ;  Baillet,  La  Vie  de 
Descartes  (2  vols.  1691) :  Ritter,  Gsch.  d.  christl.  Phil.,  vii.  1  seq. 


PROTESTANTISM   AND   PHILOSOPHY  453 

everything  to  be  tested  at  its  own  tribunal.  Who  can  fail  to 
detect  in  this  transformation  in  the  character  and  position  of 
philosophy  the  agency  of  the  Reformation,  preceded  and  sup- 
ported, to  be  sure,  by  Humanism? 

Des  Cartes  was  himself  a  Roman  CathoUc  and  educated  in  a 
Jesuit  school.  He  made  a  constant  effort  to  avoid  every  sort 
of  conflict  with  the  Church  and  with  the  champions  of  orthodoxy. 
Prudently,  for  the  sake  of  his  own  quiet,  he  made  his  residence 
in  Holland  and  in  Sweden.  He  carefully  disavowed  the  intention 
to  interfere  with  the  things  of  faith;  adopting,  in  this  matter, 
language  similar  to  that  of  Montaigne  and  his  followers  in  the 
sixteenth,  and  of  the  free-thinkers  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  their  case,  these  professions  were  ironical  and  were  made  for 
the  sake  of  avoiding  an  explicit  antagonism  to  the  Christian 
faith  and  its  adherents.  Des  Cartes  was  more  serious  and 
earnest  in  his  convictions;  yet  the  course  that  he  took  was 
quite  as  much  prompted  by  deference  to  a  settled  poHcy  as  by 
the  dictates  of  conscience.  It  was  characteristic  of  him,  as  soon 
as  he  heard  of  the  condemnation  of  Galileo,  to  suppress  his 
own  work  on  ''The  World,"  in  which  he  had  advocated  the 
Copernican  view,  and  which  was  prepared  for  the  press.  But 
all  the  wariness  and  painstaking  of  Des  Cartes  did  not  avail. 
The  empire  of  Scholasticism,  of  which  the  Aristotelian  system 
was  a  main  pillar,  could  not  be  so  easily  undermined.  The 
Cartesian  system  was  denounced  by  the  Sorbonne,  and  in  1624 
a  decree  of  Parliament  was  procured  against  it.  Its  principal 
advocates  were  the  gifted  men  of  the  Jansenist  school.  Pro- 
hibitions and  denunciations  of  the  new  philosophy  went  forth 
from  the  Council  of  the  King,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  the 
universities,  and  from  most  of  the  rehgious  orders,  until  near 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century.^  The  Jesuits,  whom  Des 
Cartes  had  tried  hard  to  concihate,  were  his  irreconcilable  oppo- 
nents. One  of  them,  Valois,  in  the  presence  of  the  assembled 
clergy  of  France,  denounced  him  and  his  followers  as  favorers 
of  Calvin.^  In  1663,  his  "Meditations,"  with  some  of  his  other 
writings,  were  placed  on  the  Prohibitory  Index  at  Rome,  "donee 
corrigantur " ;  and  there  his  name  still  stands,  with  the  names 
of  Locke,  Bacon,  Kant,  Cousin,  and  other  leaders  in  philosophic 
thought.    The  Sorbonne  made  a  second  attempt  to  obtain  from 

»  BouiUier,  i.  454.  *  Ibid.,  i.  469. 


454  THE   REFORMATION 

Parliament  a  condemnatory  decree  against  the  Cartesian  system, 
and  were  only  baffled  by  the  wit  of  Boileau,  combined  with  the 
reasoning  of  Arnauld.^  After  this  time,  the  philosophy  of  Des 
Cartes  gained  favor  with  the  more  free-minded  scholars  and 
authors  —  not  excepting  Bossuet  —  who  adorned  the  Uteratm-e 
of  France  in  this  period. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  effect  of  the  Reforma- 
tion upon  the  development  of  other  branches  of  knowledge. 
The  advance  of  the  science  of  international  law  in  modern  times 
is  connected  with  the  name  of  Grotius;  and  the  rise  of  political 
economy  with  the  names  of  Hume  and  of  Adam  Smith.  The 
natural  and  physical  sciences  owe  their  unexampled  progress 
to  the  freedom  with  which  their  investigations  are  prosecuted, 
and  to  the  method  of  independent  observation  and  experiment 
which  has  displaced  the  deductive  and  conjectural  procedure  of 
a  former  age.  But  there  is  one  department  with  regard  to 
which  Protestantism  is  often  charged  with  exerting  a  chilling 
influence.  It  is  that  of  the  fine  arts.  This  imputation,  how- 
ever, will  hardly  be  made  respecting  music  and  poetry.  Nor, 
since  the  creation  of  the  Gothic  architecture  —  a  genuine  prod- 
uct of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  the  German  mind  —  is  there  any 
type  of  building  which  can  be  attributed  to  the  Church  of  Rome, 
as  an  offspring  of  its  peculiar  spirit.  It  is  only  in  respect  to 
painting  and  sculpture,  in  which  the  ideals  of  Art  are  embodied 
in  visible  form,  that  this  objection  can  be  brought  against  Prot- 
estantism with  any  plausibility.  It  is  unquestionable  that  the 
special  character  of  Art  varies  with  the  nature  and  circumstances 
of  the  peoples  among  whom  it  springs  into  being.  It  is  also  true 
that  the  northern  races  of  the  German  stock  are,  on  the  one  hand, 
less  demonstrative,  less  impelled  by  an  inward  impulse  to  give 
visible  expression  to  their  conceptions,  -and  more  prone  to  ab- 
stract thought  and  quiet  reflections,  than  the  Latin  peoples, 
especially  the  Italians.^  This  innate  difference  is  not  without 
its  effect  in  producing  in  the  southern  races  a  greater  satisfac- 
tion with  a  ritual  that  strikes  the  senses;  and  this  same  pecul- 
iarity is  associated  with  an  artistic  impulse  and  skill.  Yet  these 
are  not  the  exclusive  possession  of  any  single  branch  of  the  hu- 

'  Bouillier,  i.  456  seq. 

*  This  difference  is  portrayed  in  a  spirited  way  by  Taine.  See  Art  in  the 
Netherlands,  pp.  31  seq.,  64. 


PROTESTANTISM   AND   ART  ^g^ 

man  family.  The  Teutonic  race  has,  likewise,  given  evia«.^ 
of  its  capacity  for  the  highest  achievements  in  art,  as  well  as  to.^ 
the  appreciation  and  enjoyment  of  its  noblest  products.  Italian 
painting  and  sculpture  were  the  creation  of  the  Renaissance; 
and  the  Art  of  the  Renaissance  was  largely  pagan.  With  the 
revival  of  Catholicism  Art  declined.  In  the  Netherlands  there 
appeared  a  new  and  original  development  of  Art;  and  in  Hol- 
land, with  its  monotonous  scenery  and  cloudy  skies  —  a  coun- 
try in  which  Protestantism  reigned  —  there  arose  a  school  of 
painters,  among  whom  is  found  one  of  the  most  original  and 
impressive  of  all  artists,  Rembrandt. 

The  most  important  topic  connected  with  the  present  dis- 
cussion remains  to  be  considered.  It  is  the  bearing  of  the 
Reformation  on  religion.  Religion  is  essential  to  the  permanence 
and  progress  of  civilization,  not  only  as  affording  motives  for 
the  restraint  of  human  passions  and  the  counteraction  of  selfish- 
ness, but  as  indispensable  to  the  healthful  and  fruitful  exertion 
of  the  intellectual  faculties.  "When  the  religion  of  a  people  is 
destroyed,"  writes  De  Tocqueville,  "doubt  gets  hold  of  the 
higher  powers  of  the  intellect,  and  half  paralyzes  all  the  others. 
Every  man  accustoms  himself  to  have  only  confused  and  chang- 
ing notions  on  the  subjects  most  interesting  to  his  fellow-crea- 
tures and  himself."  "Such  a  condition  cannot  but  enervate 
the  soul,  relax  the  springs  of  the  will,  and  prepare  a  people  for 
servitude."  "I  am  inclined  to  think  that  if  faith  be  wanting 
in  man,  he  must  be  subject;  and  if  he  be  free,  he  must  believe."  ^ 
It  is  not  strange  that  the  right  which  Protestantism  gives  to  the 
individual  with  regard  to  his  religious  belief,  should  be  thought 
by  some  to  put  the  interests  of  religion  in  peril.  But  this  right 
is,  in  another  aspect,  also  a  duty;  this  freedom  imposes  a  re- 
sponsibility; and  in  relegating  religion  more  to  the  individual, 
Protestantism  does  not  call  in  question  the  validity  of  religious 
feelings  and  obligations.  Protestantism  fosters  a  spirit  of  in- 
quiry; but  a  religion  which,  like  Christianity,  relies  upon  per- 
suasion, and  appeals  to  the  reason  and  conscience,  is  in  the  long 
run  profited  by  the  full  investigation  of  its  claims  and  doctrines, 
whatever  temporary  evils  may  arise  from  the  perverse  or  super- 
ficial application  of  the  understanding  to  questions  in  the 
solution  of  which  moral  and  religious  feeling  must  bear  a  part. 

*  Democracy  in  America,  ii.  24, 


456  THE   REFORMATION 

A  brief  historical  review  will  show  that  the  Reformation  is  not 
responsible  for  tendencies  to  skepticism  and  unbelief  which  have 
revealed  themselves  in  modern  society.  These  tendencies  dis- 
covered themselves  before  Protestantism  appeared.  The  Re- 
naissance in  Italy  was  skeptical  in  its  spirit.  Pomponatius 
expressed  the  opinion  that  Christianity,  like  other  religions  which 
had  preceded  it,  had  passed  through  the  periods  of  youth  and 
maturity  and  had  arrived  at  the  stage  of  obsolescence  and  de- 
cay. Marsilius  Ficinus  saw  no  help  for  religion  for  the  time  and 
until  God  should  appear  by  some  miraculous  manifestation, 
save  in  the  bolstering  aid  of  philosophy  and  from  the  tenets  of 
Platonism.^  This  infidelity  sprang  up  in  the  bosom  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church,  partly  as  a  reaction  against  superstitious 
doctrines  and  practices  which  the  Church  countenanced,  partly 
from  the  Epicurean  lives  of  ecclesiastics  and  the  worldliness 
which  had  corrupted  the  piety  of  the  official  guardians  of  reli- 
gion. Independently  of  these  negative  influences,  however, 
there  had  come  a  time  when  reason,  conscious  of  itself  and  of  its 
mature  strength,  rose  up  to  scrutinize  the  traditions  which  it 
had  accepted  without  a  question,  and  to  test  the  foundations  on 
which  faith  had  rested.  Such  an  epoch  occurs  in  the  history  of 
other  religions.  Had  practical  religion  existed  in  greater  power, 
this  natural  crisis  and  period  of  transition  might  have  been 
safely  passed,  and  the  result  would  have  been  at  once  a  more 
enlightened  and  a  more  assured  faith.  Protestantism,  with  the 
warm  religious  life  which  attended  its  rise,  did  actually  interpose 
an  effectual  barrier  to  the  spread  of  infidelity,  and  for  the  time 
smothered  its  germs.  But  the  latent  tendencies  to  which  we 
have  adverted  reappeared,  and,  after  the  tide  of  religious  ear- 
nestness in  which  the  Reformation  began  had  subsided;  after 
practical  religion  was  lost,  in  a  measure,  in  the  turmoil  of  theo- 
logical controversy,  and  by  the  demoralizing  effect  of  long  and 
sanguinary  wars,  these  tendencies  had  full  play.  Moreover, 
Protestantism  was  guilty  of  a  degree  of  unfaithfulness  to  one  of 
its  own  cardinal  principles.  The  rigid  enforcement  of  dogmatic 
conformity,  in  connection  with  punctilious  tests  of  orthodoxy, 
within  the  several  Protestant  communions,  was  felt  to  be  at  vari- 
ance with  the  Protestant  principle  of  liberty.  Among  the  ad- 
herents of  the  Reformation  in  the  seventeenth  century  a  new 

•  >feander,  Wissenschaftl.  Abhandl.,  p.  219. 


SKEPTICISM  457 

scholasticism  arose.  A  new  yoke  was  imposed,  hardly  less  oner- 
ous than  that  which  the  Reformation  had  cast  off.  Hence 
there  ensued  a  revolt,  an  extensive  reaction,  in  behalf  of  this 
negative  principle  of  opposition  to  human  authority  in  religious 
concerns.  Such  a  reaction,  in  the  absence  of  an  adequate 
check,  was  pushed  to  an  extreme;  so  that  the  positive,  or  reli- 
gious element  of  Protestantism  was  sacrificed.  The  cause  of 
liberty  of  thought  became  identified  with  doubt  or  disbelief. 
Modern  unbelief  first  took  the  form  of  Deism,  which  spread  in 
Europe  until  it  became  the  fashionable  religion  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  England,  the  wearisome  conflict  of  theological 
parties  impelled  some  to  explore  for  a  fundamental  religion  under- 
lying these  differences,  for  a  creed  which  was  held  by  all  in  com- 
mon. This  contributed  to  the  rise  of  Free-thinking,  or  Deism, 
of  which  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  was  the  first  advocate  of  dis- 
tinction. It  found  the  most  congenial  home  in  France,  whence 
it  spread  among  other  nations,  which  then  looked  to  France 
for  their  opinions  as  well  as  their  manners  and  fashions.  The 
creed  of  Deism  was  an  heirloom  from  Christianity.  The  sense 
of  the  supernatural,  weakened  though  it  was,  still  sustained  the 
belief  in  a  personal  God,  however  he  might  be  set  a  distance 
from  men.  Pantheism  was  a  second  legitimate  step  in  the  same 
path.  It  is  the  denial  of  the  supernatural  altogether ;  it  merges 
the  Creator  in  the  creation,  or  rather  in  nature,  which  is  consid- 
ered the  manifestation  of  an  impersonal  force  or  law.  These 
types  of  unbelief  affected  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  nations 
alike.  But  France,  Catholic  France,  was  the  principal  center 
of  skepticism  in  the  last  century.  Even  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIV.,  Mersenne,  the  friend  of  Des  Cartes,  said  that  there  were 
fifty  thousand  Atheists  in  Paris.  It  was  doubtless  an  exagger- 
ated statement;  yet  the  number  of  the  neutral  class,  which  ac- 
cepted neither  Catholicism  nor  Protestantism,  was  large;  and 
this  class  either  denied  or  doubted  the  truth  of  Revelation.^ 
Deism,  and  finally  Materialism  and  Atheism,  became  the  creed 
of  the  philosophers  and  of  the  educated  class.  When  the  great 
Revolution  burst  forth,  there  was  no  principle  of  religion  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people  to  chasten  and  direct  the  passions  which 

*  Sainte  Beuve  says  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  that  it  was  "mined"  by  in- 
fideUty :  "he  r^gne  de  Louis  XIV.  en  est  comme  min^."  Port  Royal,  iii.  237. 
Bayle's  Dictionary  appeared  in  1697;  and  this  may  be  considered  a  landmark 
in  the  development  of  skepticism. 


458  THE   REFORMATION 

had  been  excited  to  fury  by  a  long  course  of  misgovernment 
and  oppression.  The  persecution  of  the  Jansenists  and  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Huguenots,  had  deprived  France  of  a  moral  force 
which  might  have  saved  it  from  unspeakable  calamities.  At  the 
present  day  religious  scepticism  among  the  educated  classes  in 
Italy,  Spain,  and  France  is  a  notorious  fact.  History  demon- 
strates that  the  principle  of  authority,  as  it  is  maintained  bj' 
the  Church  of  Rome,  constitutes  no  safeguard  against  infidelity 
and  irreligion.  On  the  contrary,  the  attempt  to  exert  an  un- 
due control  over  reason  and  conscience  tends  to  awaken  a  spirit 
of  rebellion,  which  is  liable  not  only  to  reject  the  yoke  that  is 
sought  to  be  imposed,  but  with  it,  also,  the  verities  of  religion. 
The  spectacle  of  superstitious  beliefs  and  customs,  retained  in 
an  enlightened  era,  has  a  like  effect.  Neither  Protestantism  nor 
Catholicism  can  afford  an  absolute  guarantee  against  the  in- 
coming and  spread  of  unbelief.  But  as  far  as  phenomena  of 
this  sort  can  be  traced  to  Protestantism,  it  is  to  a  Protestantism 
which  is  disloyal  to  its  own  principles.  Experience  proves  that 
coercion  is  not  adapted  to  procure  conviction.  No  sounder 
wisdom,  respecting  the  treatment  of  dissent,  has  ever  been  dis- 
covered than  that  of  Gamaliel :  "  Refrain  from  these  men  and 
let  them  alone ;  for  if  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,  it  will 
come  to  naught." 

German  Rationalism  has  assumed  two  forms,  a  critical  and 
a  philosophical.  On  the  one  hand,  in  a  movement  that  began 
with  the  Arminian  scholars  of  Holland,  but  which  dates  in 
Germany  from  the  theologian  Semler,  there  has  appeared  an 
activity  in  Biblical  and  historical  criticism  without  a  parallel. 
Inquiries  of  this  nature,  which  have  to  do  with  the  origin  of  the 
several  books  of  the  Bible,  their  date  and  authorship,  and  their 
true  interpretation,  with  the  history  of  the  canon,  and  with  the 
nature  of  Inspiration,  and  of  the  authority  conferred  by  it,  are 
consonant  with  the  spirit  of  Protestantism,  and  are  even  required 
by  its  principles.  Ecclesiastical  tradition  cannot  be  blindly 
accepted,  but  must  be  subjected  to  examination.  Luther  set 
the  example  of  such  criticism  in  the  judgments  —  whatever  ex- 
ceptions may  be  justly  taken  to  their  soundness  —  which  he 
passed  upon  canonical  books,  and  in  his  comments  upon  vari- 
ous portions  of  Scripture ;  although,  at  the  same  time,  his  mind 
was  imbued  with  the  deepest  reverence  for  the  Word  of  God. 


GERMAN   RATIONALISM  459 

The  investigations  of  German  scholarship  for  the  last  century, 
whatever  amount  of  error  and  groundless  hypothesis  may  have 
been  incidental  to  them,  have  added  vastly  to  our  knowledge 
of  the  Bible  and  of  Christian  antiquity.  In  the  philosophical 
direction.  Rationalism  was  at  first  Deistic;  it  adopted  for  its 
creed  the  three  facts  of  God,  free  will,  and  immortality,  which 
Kant  derived  from  the  "practical  reason."  In  the  successors 
of  Kant,  the  influence  of  Spinoza  was  mingled  with  that  of  the 
philosopher  of  Konigsberg.  Pantheistic  speculation  supplanted 
Deism,  and  gave  rise  to  a  new  phase  in  Biblical  and  historical 
criticism.  Eichhorn  and  Paulus  were  succeeded  by  Strauss 
and  Baur.  In  the  field  of  philosophy,  the  school  of  materialism 
has  also  had  its  adherents.  It  is  far  from  being  true  that  Ger- 
man science  has  been  uniformly  allied  to  skepticism  and  imbelief . 
In  Schleiermacher,  deep  religious  feeling  appeared  in  union  with 
the  highest  degree  of  critical  and  philosophical  acumen.  He 
communicated  an  impulse  to  many  who  dissent  from  his  opin- 
ions. Through  him  there  has  arisen  a  great  body  of  scholars, 
who  respect  the  claims  both  of  science  and  of  the  Christian  faith, 
and  have  undertaken,  in  a  free  and  unbiased  spirit,  which  Prot- 
estantism demands,  to  explore  the  past  and  to  investigate  the 
documents  of  the  Christian  faith,  at  the  same  time  that  they 
have  recognized  the  indestructible  foundations  of  religion,  which 
lie  in  the  intuitions  and  necessities  of  the  soul,  and  in  the  facts 
of  history.  The  origin  of  Rationalism,  and  its  relation  to  the 
Reformation,  have  been  thus  described  by  Neander :  "  The  first 
living  development  of  Protestantism  was  succeeded,  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  by  a  stagnation.  The  Catho- 
lic Church  lay  benumbed  in  its  external  ecclesiasticism ;  the 
Protestant  in  its  one-sided  engrossment  in  doctrinal  abstractions. 
Since  the  ruling  form  of  doctrine  was  stiffly  held,  in  opposition 
to  all  free  development,  such  as  the  principle  of  Protestantism 
demands,  reactions  of  this  original  principle  were  called  forth  in 
the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  Churches.  This  reactionary  tend- 
ency, in  the  form  of  an  emancipation  from  a  dogmatic  yoke, 
was  carried,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  far  beyond  its  original 
aim.  The  reformatory  movement,  being  negative,  became  revo- 
lutionary. With  this  there  was  connected  a  new  epoch  in  the 
general  progress  of  nations.  The  culture  which  had  grown  up 
under  the  rule  of  the  Church  sought  to  make  itself  independent. 


460  THE   REFORMATION 

Reason,  striving  after  emancipation  from  the  thraldom  in  which 
it  had  been  held  by  the  despotical  power  of  the  Church,  revolted ; 
and  Christian  doctrine  was  obliged  to  enter  into  a  new  conflict 
with  this  opposing  element ;  but,  inasmuch  as  Christian  doctrine 
was  possessed  of  a  more  powerful  principle,  it  could  successfully 
withstand  the  danger.  The  conflict  served  to  purify  it  from 
the  disturbing  admixture  of  human  elements,  and  to  bring  to 
view  the  harmony  of  everything  purely  human  with  that  which 
is  divine.  Thus  there  arose,  especially  in  Germany,  a  period, 
which  began  with  Semler,  of  the  breaking  up  of  previous  beliefs ; 
but  this  critical  process  was  a  sifting  and  a  preparation  for  a  new 
creation,  which  emanated  predominantly  from  Schleiermacher. 
This,  also,  could  develop  itself  only  in  a  renewed  conflict  with 
Rationalism :  and  in  this  conflict  we  at  the  present  time  are  en- 
gaged."^ 

The  multiplying  of  sects  under  Protestantism  has  frequently 
formed  the  matter  of  a  grave  objection  to  it.  In  the  first  gen- 
eration of  the  Reformers,  the  hope  of  a  restoration  of  ecclesias- 
tical unity,  by  means  of  a  general  council,  was  not  given  up. 
For  a  considerable  period,  Protestants  sought  to  reform  the  na- 
tional churches,  with  the  aim  and  expectation  of  preserving 
their  integrity.  The  design  was  to  abolish  abuses  and  to  recon- 
stitute the  creed,  polity,  and  ritual,  in  conformity  with  their 
own  ideas.  But  in  some  countries  —  in  France,  for  example 
—  they  found  themselves  in  a  minority,  and  unable  to  accom- 
plish their  end.  Liberty  for  them  to  exist,  and  mutual  tolera- 
tion between  the  two  great  divisions  of  the  sundered  Church, 
was  the  most  that  could  be  hoped  for.  But  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries, divisions  arose  which  proved  irreconcilable.  Thus  in 
England,  the  difference  as  to  the  form  which  the  Reformation 
ought  to  take,  separated  Protestants  into  two  opposing  camps. 
Then  other  parties  appeared,  who  were  convinced  of  the  unright- 
eousness or  impoHcy  of  establishments,  whatever  might  be  the 
ecclesiastical  system  which  it  was  proposed  to  render  national 
by  a  connection  with  the  State.  Sects  have  multiplied  in  Prot- 
estant countries  in  a  manner  which  the  early  Reformers  did  not 
anticipate.  On  this  subject  of  denominational  or  sectarian 
divisions,  it  may  be  said  with  truth,  that  disunion  of  this  sort  is 
better  than  a  leaden  uniformity,  the  effect  of  bhnd  obedience 

'  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  23,  24. 


THE   MULTIPLICITY   OF  SECTS  461 

to  ecclesiastical  superiors,  of  the  stagnation  of  religious  thought, 
or  of  coercion.  Disagreement  in  opinion  is  a  penalty  of  intel- 
lectual activity,  to  which  it  is  well  to  submit  where  the  alterna- 
tive is  either  of  the  evils  just  mentioned.  It  may  also  be  said 
with  truth,  that  within  the  pale  of  the  Church  of  Rome  there 
have  been  conflicts  of  parties  and  a  wrangling  of  disputants, 
which  are  scarcely  less  conspicuous  than  the  like  phenomena  on 
the  Protestant  side.  The  vehement  and  prolonged  warfare  of  dog- 
matic schools  and  of  religious  orders,  of  Scotists  and  Thomists, 
of  Jansenists  and  Jesuits,  of  Dominicans  and  MoUnists,  make 
the  annals  of  Catholicism  resound  with  the  din  of  controversy. 
That  these  debates,  often  pushed  to  the  point  of  angry  conten- 
tion, have  been  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  Christian  piety, 
will  not  be  questioned.  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  conceded 
that  the  Protestant  faith  has  been  weakened  within  Protestant 
lands,  and  in  the  presence  of  Roman  Catholics,  and  of  the 
heathen  nations,  by  the  manifestations  of  a  sectarian  spirit,  and 
by  the  very  existence  of  so  many  diverse,  and  often  antagonistic, 
denominations.  The  first  great  conflict  between  the  Luther- 
ans and  the  Zwinghans  operated  to  retard  the  progress  of  the 
Reformation.  The  impression  was  made,  especially  upon  timid 
and  cautious  minds,  that  no  certainty  with  regard  to  religious 
truth  could  be  attained,  if  the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
were  discarded.  As  other  divisions  followed,  and  in  some  cases, 
on  minor  questions  of  doctrine,  which  yet  were  made  the  occa- 
sion of  new  ecclesiastical  organizations,  this  argument  of  the  ad- 
versaries of  Protestantism  was  urged  with  an  increased  effect. 
The  "variations  of  Protestants"  were  depicted  in  such  a  way 
as  to  inspire  the  feeling,  that  to  renounce  the  old  Church  was  to 
embark  on  a  tempestuous  sea,  with  no  star  to  guide  one's  course. 
When  we  consider,  from  a  historic  point  of  \'iew,  the  sectarian 
divisions  of  Protestantism,  we  find  that  they  arose  generally 
from  the  spirit  of  intolerance,  and  the  spirit  of  faction ;  two  tem- 
pers of  feeling  which  have  an  identical  root,  since  both  grow  out 
of  a  disposition  to  push  to  an  extreme,  even  to  the  point  of  ex- 
clusion and  separation,  religious  opinions  which  may  be  the 
property  of  an  individual  or  of  a  class,  but  are  not  fundamental 
to  the  Christian  faith.  Protestants,  having  rejected  the  exter- 
nal criteria  of  a  true  Church,  on  which  Roman  Catholics  insist, 
have  sometimes  hastily  inferred  a  moral  right  on  the  part  of  any 


462  THE  REFORMATION 

number  of  Christians  to  found  new  Church  associations  at  their 
pleasure.  This  has  actually  been  done,  with  little  insight  into 
the  design  of  the  visible  Church  and  into  its  nature  as  a  counter- 
part of  the  Church  invisible.  Coupled  with  this  propensity  to 
divide  and  to  estabhsh  new  communions,  there  has  appeared  a 
tendency  to  overlook  the  proper  function  of  the  Church,  and  to 
stretch  the  jurisdiction  of  the  several  bodies  thus  formed  over 
the  individuals  who  belong  to  them,  in  matters  both  of  opinion 
and  practice,  to  an  extent  not  warranted  by  the  principles  of 
Christianity.  Protestantism  has  sometimes  given  rise  to  an 
ecclesiastical  tyranny  as  unjustifiable  as  that  which  is  charged 
upon  Rome.  In  some  cases,  the  rights  of  the  individual  count 
for  httle  against  the  claims,  or  even  the  whims,  of  the  particular 
religious  community  in  which  he  is  enrolled,  and  to  which  he 
pays  allegiance.  But  within  the  bosom  of  the  Protestant  bodies 
there  are  constantly  at  work,  with  a  growing  efficiency,  forces 
adverse  to  schism  and  separation,  and  in  favor  of  the  restoration 
of  a  Christian  unity,  which,  springing  out  of  common  convic- 
tions with  regard  to  essential  truth,  and  animated  by  the  spirit 
of  charity,  shall  soften  the  antagonism  of  sects,  and  diminish, 
if  not  obliterate,  their  points  of  diversity.  This  irenical  tend- 
ency seems  prophetic  of  a  new  stage  in  the  development  of  Prot- 
estantism, when  freedom  and  union,  liberty  and  order,  shall  be 
found  compatible.^ 

*  In  the  first  age  of  the  Reformation,  Protestants  were  not  in  a  situation  to 
establish  missions  among  the  heathen.  Apart  from  other  circuxnstances,  the 
dominion  of  the  sea  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Cathohc  powers.  In  the  seventeenth 
century,  for  a  long  time,  Protestants  were  too  busy  in  defending  their  faith,  in 
Europe,  to  think  of  enterprises  abroad.  But  the  English  settlements  in  New 
England  had  for  a  part  of  their  design  the  conversion  of  the  Indians.  The  name 
of  John  Eliot  has  a  high  place  in  missionary  biography.  The  Dutch,  in  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  did  much  missionary  work  among  their  settlements  in  the  East ; 
sometimes  in  a  too  sectarian  spirit  and  with  too  great  a  desire  to  swell  the  num- 
ber of  nominal  adherents.  Cromwell  formed  a  scheme  for  a  society  for  the  diffu- 
sion of  Protestant  Christianity  over  the  globe.  In  the  last  century  and  in  the 
present,  Protestant  missions  have  been  prosecuted  by  different  religious  bodies 
with  zeal  and  success.  The  Catholic  counter-reformation  was  attended  with 
great  exertions  for  the  propagation  of  the  Catholic  faith  among  the  heathen.  The 
Orders  were  especially  prominent  in  this  work.  In  South  America  and  Mexico, 
in  India,  China,  and  Japan,  their  efforts  were  untiring.  The  record  of  Jesuit 
missions  among  the  North  American  Indians  presents  examples  of  self-denying 
fortitude  almost  without  a  parallel.  (See  Parkman's  admirable  work.  The  Jesuits 
in  North  America.)  In  the  East,  Xa\'ier  labored  with  an  irresistible  earnestness. 
His  career  (1542-1552)  was  remarkable.  Multitudes  of  the  heathen  consented 
to  receive  baptism  at  his  hands.  Nobili  in  India,  Ricci  in  China,  and  other  mis- 
sionaries followed  his  example.  The  Congrcqatio  de  propaganda  fide  was  estab- 
lished in  1622.     But  the  religious  Orders  fell  into  conflict  with  one  another.     The 


RELIGION   AND   CULTURE  463 

It  is  a  distinctive  characteristic  of  Protestantism,  that  it 
does  not  assume  to  be  unerring  in  its  interpretations  of  divine 
revelation,  or  in  its  understanding  of  Christian  ethics.  Much 
less  does  it  pretend  that  its  disciples  are  impeccable  in  practical 
conduct.  This  capacity  of  intellectual  and  moral  progress 
leaves  the  Protestant  free,  while  adhering  to  the  essential  prin- 
ciples of  the  Reformation,  to  criticise  the  doings  of  those  in  past 
times  who  have  professed  them,  to  modify  their  opinions  on 
points  where  they  are  seen  to  have  been  erroneous,  and  to  ad- 
vance in  a  hopeful  spirit  towards  a  future  in  which  religious 
truth  shall  be  seen  in  a  clearer  hght,  and  be  more  consistently 
applied  in  the  Uves  of  men. 

The  true  relation  of  Christianity  to  culture,  Protestantism, 
despite  many  inconsistencies  and  errors,  has  not  failed  to  discern. 
Christianity  was  the  reUgion  of  humanity  in  every  just  sense  of 
the  term.  It  not  only  abohshed  all  national  antipathies;  broke 
down  the  wall  of  partition  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  which  had 
been  necessary  in  the  planting  of  true  rehgion :  it  obliterated, 
also,  the  Une  of  separation  between  religion  and  the  varied  ac- 
tivities and  provinces  of  human  Ufe.  Rules  gave  way  to  prin- 
ciples; the  letter  of  commandments  to  the  spirit  of  a  new  life. 
The  disciple  was  not  to  avoid  the  world,  but  only  the  evil  in 
it.  Religion  was  not  to  be  something  apart,  but  rather  a  leaven 
to  permeate  all  things.  St.  Paul  took  up  phrases  of  heathen 
poets  and  Stoic  philosophers,  and  gave  them  a  new  setting. 
Christianity  was  to  assimilate  everything  not  alien  to  its  own 
essence.  It  came  not  to  trample  on  any  genuine  products  of 
the  human  mind  or  expressions  of  human  nature,  in  literature, 
art,  or  social  Hfe,  but  to  purify  them  all  and  to  reveal  their  con- 
nection with  the  supreme  end  of  man's  being.  All  this  is  com- 
prised in  the  reaUzation  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  It 
involves  the  perfection  of  human  nature  on  all  sides.     Thus 

excessive  accommodation  of  the  Jesuits  to  heathen  customs  was  sternly  resisted 
by  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  and  finally  condemned  at  Rome.  In  Japan, 
the  Jesuits  rendered  themselves  politically  obnoxious,  and  were  driven  out.  The 
permanent  results  of  the  Roman  Catholic  missions  since  the  Reformation,  consid- 
ering the  number  of  their  nominal  converts,  are  not  such  as  to  inspire  confidence  in 
the  methods  in  which  they  were  prosecuted.  Xavier  describes  the  course  he  took 
—  how,  for  example,  he  made  Christians  of  ten  thousand  in  a  month.  See  H. 
J.  Coleridge,  Life  and  Letters  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  (1872),  i.  280.  On  the  Catholic 
missions,  seq  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  ii.  503.  Gieseler,  iv.  i.  3.  iii.  §  61 ;  iv. 
ii.  2,  c.  iv. 


464  THE   REFORMATION 

Christianity  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill;  not  merely  to 
carry  out  law  to  its  ultimate  statement,  but  to  give  full  effect  to 
every  aspiration  and  tendency  proper  to  man.  Its  law  of  self- 
denial  was  not  a  rule  of  asceticism,  but  of  rational  self-control. 

The  corruption  of  ancient  society,  spreading  its  infection 
within  the  Church,  in  connection  with  judaical  ideas  of  the 
separateness  of  religion  and  of  religious  persons,  produced  asceti- 
cism. A  new  wall  was  erected  between  things  sacred  and  secu- 
lar, between  priest  and  layman,  between  religion  and  human 
life.  The  ascetic  would  escape  from  the  contamination  of  evil 
by  abjuring  even  innocent  gratifications.  His  remedy  is  to 
stunt  and  dwarf  his  nature.  He  attaches  a  stigma  to  relations 
and  employments  into  which  the  bulk  of  mankind  must  enter. 
Such  was  the  error  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Protestantism  cast  away  this  error.  It  was  a  religion  of  the 
spirit  and  of  hberty.  Luther  advised  monks  and  nuns  to  marry, 
to  engage  in  useful  employments,  to  get  from  life  all  reasonable 
pleasures,  and  to  do  good  in  a  practical  way.  Religion  is  not  to 
divorce  itself  from  science,  art,  industry,  recreation,  from  any- 
thing that  promotes  the  well-being  of  man  on  earth;  but  reli- 
gion is  to  leaven  all  with  a  higher  consecration.  This  is  the  real 
creed  of  Protestantism.  It  does  not  hold  to  a  Hebraic  isolation 
of  the  religious  element,  nor  to  a  pagan  self-indulgence.  It 
steers  midway  between  the  false  extremes  of  license  and  asceti- 
cism. There  are  popular  writers  at  the  present  day  who  openly 
contend  for  the  absolute  dominion  of  impulse,  or  for  a  surrender 
to  nature,  such  as  characterized  the  Greeks  of  old,  but  which 
brought  ruin  upon  Greek  civilization.  They  feel  the  error  of 
asceticism  so  strongly  as  almost  to  loathe  the  Middle  Ages.^ 
These  writers  strangely  overlook  the  place  of  self-denial  in  a 
world  where  evil  has  so  great  a  sway;  and  they  strangely  for- 
get that  the  antique  culture,  with  all  its  beautiful  products,  un- 
derwent a  terrible  shipwreck.  The  problem  of  the  reconciliation 
of  religion  and  culture,  and  of  the  harmonizing  of  the  proper 
claims  of  this  life  and  of  the  life  to  come,  is  one  for  the  solution 
of  which  Protestantism  has  the  key. 

•  See  the  writings  of  Taine,  passim. 


APPENDIX   I 


A  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE » 

1479.   Union  of  Aragon  and  Castile  under  Ferdinand  V.  (the  Catholic) 

and  Isabella.     (Conquest  of  Granada,  1492.) 
1481.   Establishment  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.   (Date  of  the  first  edicts.) 

1483.  Birth  of  Luther,  November  10. 

1484.  Birth  of  Zwingli,  January  1. 

1485.  Accession  of  Henry  VII.  (the  House  of  Tudor),  in  England;  end  of 

the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 

1491.  Birth  of  Ignatius  Loyola. 

1492.  Discovery  of  America  by  Columbus. 

1493.  Accession  of  Maximilian  I.  as  Emperor. 

1494.  Invasion  of  Italy  by  Charles  VIII.     Conquest  of  Naples  by  the 

French.     Beginning  of  the  Wars  of  Italy. 

1495.  Naples  reconquered  by  Ferdinand  II.     Diet  of  Worms:    estab- 

lishment of  the  Imperial  Chamber. 

1497.  Birth  of  Melancthon,  February  16.     Vasco  da  Gama  doubles  the 

Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  sails  to  India. 

1498.  Death  of  Savonarola,  May  23. 

1500.  Birth  of  Charles  V.,  February  24. 

1501.  Louis  XII.  and  Ferdinand  V.  (the  Catholic)  conquer  and  divide 

the  kingdom  of  Naples.     Contest  between  them. 

1502.  The  University  of  Wittenberg  is  founded. 

1503.  Louis  XII.  finally  deprived  of  Naples.     Erasmus  publishes  the 

"Manual  of  a  Christian  Soldier."  Death  of  Pope  Alexander 
VI. ;   accession  of  Julius  II. 

1504.  Death  of  Isabella  of  Castile.     She  is  succeeded  by  her  daughter 

Joanna,  with  her  husband  Philip  I.  of  Austria,  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy. 

1505.  Peace   between   France   and   Spain;   the  kingdom  of  Naples   is 

left  wholly  to  Spain.  Luther  enters  a  monastery  at  Erfurt, 
July  17. 

1506.  Death  of  Philip  I.     Joanna  becomes  demented.     Charles  I.  suc- 

ceeds them  (in  his  minority).  Juhus  I.  begins  St.  Peter's 
Church.  He  extends  the  papal  dominion  over  Perugia  and 
Bologna.     Accession  of  Sigismund  I.  in  Poland. 

•  In  preparing  this  Table,  much  aid  has  been  derived  from  the  Tables  of 
Chronology  in  Alberi's  edition  of  the  Relazioni  degli  Ambasciatori  Veneti  (Appen- 
dice),  1863. 

465 


4G6  THE  REFORMATION 

1508.  League  of  Cambray  against  Venice,  formed  by  Julius  II.,  Fer- 

dinand v.,  Louis  XIL,  and  Maximilian  I.  Luther  is  made  a 
professor  at  Wittenberg. 

1509.  Accession  of  Henry  VIII.  in  England.     His  marriage  with  Cath- 

arine of  Aragon,  June  29.  Luther  is  ordained  a  priest.  May  2. 
Birth  of  Calvin,  July  10. 

1510.  Conquest  of  Goa  on  the  coast  of  Malabar;    foundation  of  Por- 

tuguese power  in  the  East.  Julius  11.  unites  with  Venice  to 
drive  the  French  out  of  Italy.     Luther  visits  Rome. 

1511.  Ferdinand  V.  and  Henry  VIII.  join  the  Holy  League,  ostensibly 

for  the  protection  of  the  Church. 

1512.  Maximilian  joins  the   Holy  League.      Maximilian   Sforza  placed 

on  the  Ducal  throne  of  Milan,  from  which  the  French  are  ex- 
pelled.    The  Lateran  Council  (5th)  opens.  May  3. 

1513.  Death  of  JuUus  II.,  February  21.     Accession  of  Leo  X.,  March  11. 

Death  of  James  IV.  of  Scotland.     Accession  of  James  V. 

1514.  Reuchlin's  conflict  with  the  Dominicans. 

1515.  Death  of  Louis  XII. ;   accession  of  Francis  I.     He  sets  out  to  re- 

conquer Milan.  Battle  of  Marignano,  September  13.  Abolish- 
ment of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction. 

1516.  Death  of  Ferdinand  V.,  January  23.    Charles  of  Austria  becomes 

monarch  of  all  Spain  and  its  dependencies.  Peace  concluded 
between  France,  Spain,  and  Austria.  Death  of  Ladislaus,  king 
of  Hungary  and  Bohemia;  succeeded  by  Louis  II.  Zwingli  a 
preacher  in  Einsiedeln.  Erasmus  publishes  his  New  Testa- 
ment.    "Epistolse  Obscurorum  Virorum. " 

1517.  Luther  posts  his  Theses,  October  31. 

1518.  Luther  appears  before  Cajetan  at  Augsburg,  October  7.     Melanc- 

thon  arrives  at  Wittenberg,  August  25.  Leo  X.  publishes  a 
Bull  on  Indulgences,  November  9.  Mission  of  Miltitz  into 
Saxony,  December.     Zwingli  becomes  pastor  in  Zurich. 

1519.  Death  of  Maximilian   I.,   January   12.     Charles,   king  of  Spain, 

elected  Emperor,  June  28.  Disputation  at  Leipsic,  June  27. 
Birth  of  Catharine  de  Medici,  April  13. 

1520.  Excommunication  of  Luther  by  Leo  X.,  June  15.     Luther  burns 

the  bull,  December  10.  Insurrection  of  the  Spanish  Commons; 
subdued  the  next  year.  Coronation  of  Charles  V.  at  Aachen. 
Death  of  Selim  I.,  and  accession  of  Soliman  II.  as  Sultan.  Ma- 
gellan begins  the  first  voyage  round  the  world. 

1521.  Another  bull  issued  against  Luther,  January  3.     Luther  appears 

before  the  Diet  of  Worms,  April  18.  Edict  of  the  Diet  against 
him.  May  26.  His  abduction  to  the  Wartburg,  April  28. 
League  of  Leo  X.  and  Charles  V.  Milan  is  wrested  from  the 
French  by  Charles  V.  Accession  of  Henry  VIII.  to  the  League. 
Soliman  II.  invades  Hungary  and  takes  Belgrade,  August. 
Death  of  Leo  X.,  December  1.  Conquest  of  Mexico  by  Cortez, 
completed  August  13. 

1522.  Accession  of  Adrian  VI.,  January  9.    Disturbances  by  Carlstadt 


APPENDIX  I  467 

at  Wittenberg.  Luther  leaves  the  Wartburg.  Luther's  An- 
swer to  Henry  VIIL,  July  15.  Adrian's  Letter  to  the  Diet  of 
Nuremberg,  September  24.  The  Hundred  Grievances  of  Ger- 
many.    Capture  of  Rhodes  by  Soliman  11. 

1523.  Gustavus  Vasa  is  proclaimed  king  of  Sweden,  June  23.     Defection 

of  the  Constable  Bourbon.  Death  of  Adrian  VI.,  September 
24.  Accession  of  Clement  VII.,  November  19.  Disputations 
at  Zurich,  January  29,  and  October  26.  Reformation  in 
Livonia. 

1524.  Treaty  of  Malmoe.     End  of  the  Union  of  Calmar.     Independence 

of  Sweden.  Albert  of  Brandenburg  declares  for  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  Landgrave  of  Hesse  favors  it.  Catholic  League 
signed  at  Ratisbon,  July  10.  Peasants'  War.  Quarrel  of 
Erasmus  and  Ulrich  von  Hutten.  Secret  alliance  of  Clement 
VII.  and  Francis  I.     Order  of  Theatines  is  founded. 

1525.  Defeat  and  capture  of  Francis  I.  at  Pavia,  February  25.     Fred- 

eric I.  of  Denmark  grants  liberty  to  Protestantism.  Mass 
abohshed  at  Zurich,  April  11.  ZwingH  pubhshes  his  "Com- 
mentary on  True  and  False  Religion."  Luther's  marriage, 
June  13.     Death  of  the  Elector  Frederic,  May  5. 

1526.  Treaty  of  Madrid,   January   14.     Battle  of  Mohacs.     Death  of 

Louis  11.  Ferdinand  of  Austria  becomes  king  of  Bohemia  and 
Hungary.  Civil  war  in  Hungary.  League  of  Cognac,  between 
Francis  I.,  Clement  VII.,  and  other  powers,  against  the  Em- 
peror, May  22.  Recess  of  the  Diet  of  Spires,  August  27.  The 
League  of  Torgau  is  formed.  The  Reformation  begun  in  Den- 
mark. 

1527.  Capture  and  sack  of  Rome  by  the  imperial  troops.     Henry  VIIL 

seeks  a  divorce  from  Catharine  of  Aragon.  Diet  of  Westeras : 
establishment  of  the  Reformation  in  Sweden.  Visitation  of  the 
Saxon  Churches. 

1528.  Reformation  begins  in  Scotland.    Martyrdom  of  Hamilton.    Refor- 

mation established  in  Berne. 

1529.  Second   Diet  of   Spires.     Protest  of  the  Lutherans.     Treaty  of 

Barcelona  between  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor.  Peace  of  Cam- 
bray.  Francis  I.  leaves  Milan  to  the  Empire.  Siege  of  Vienna 
by  Soliman  II.  Reformation  established  in  Basel.  The  Mar- 
burg Conference,  October  1. 

1530.  Coronation  of  Charles  V.  by  Clement  VII.  at  Bologna,  Febru- 

ary 22.     Diet  of  Augsburg  is  opened,  June  25.     The  Augsburg 
Confession.     Geneva  freed  from  the  Dukes  of  Savoy.     Death 
of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  November  29. 

1531.  The  Archduke  Ferdinand  of  Austria,  elected  King  of  the  Romans, 

January  5.  League  of  Smalcald,  February  17.  Henry  VIIL 
is  styled  by  the  clergy  Head  of  the  Church  of  England,  March  22. 
A  Diet  of  Spires,  September  13.  War  of  Cappel :  Death  of 
Zwingli,  October  11.  Peace  between  Zurich  and  the  five  Can- 
tons, November  16.     Death  of  (Ecolampadius,  November  23. 


468  THE   REFORMATION 

1532.  Peace  of  Nuremberg.     Alarm  from  the  Turks.     Death  of  the  Elec- 

tor John,  August  15.  He  is  succeeded  by  John  Frederic.  Farel 
preaches  in  Geneva. 

1533.  Divorce  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  his  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn. 

Marriage  of  Henry  of  Orleans  (afterwards  Henry  II.)  with 
Catharine  de  Medici,  October  28. 

1534.  Henry  VIII.  is  excommunicated  by  Clement  VII.,  March  23.     Act 

of  Supremacy  passed,  November  23.  Death  of  Clement  VII., 
Sept.  25;  succeeded  by  Paul  III.,  October  13.  The  placards 
posted  at  Paris.  Alliance  of  Francis  I.  with  the  Sultan.  Loyola 
commences  the  organization  of  the  Jesuit  Order  at  Paris. 
Luther's  translation  of  the  Bible  is  completed. 

1535.  Persecution   of   French    Protestants   by   Francis   I.     He   invites 

Melancthon  to  his  court,  June  28.  Mlinster  taken  from  the 
Anabaptists,  June  24.  Expedition  of  Charles  V.  to  Tunis. 
Francisco  Sforza  leaves  Milan  to  Charles  V.  Consequent  war 
between  Charles  and  Francis  I.  Establishment  of  Protestant- 
ism in  Geneva. 

1536.  Execution  of  Anne  Boleyn,  May  19.     Marriage  of  Henry  VIII. 

with  Jane  Seymour,  May  20.  Invasion  of  Provence  by  the  Im- 
perialists. Their  retreat.  Death  of  Erasmus,  July  12.  Calvin 
pubhshes  his  "Institutes"  at  Basel.     Calvin  appears  in  Geneva, 

July. 

1537.  Birth  of  Edward  VI.     Death  of  Jane  Seymour,  October  12.     Ec- 

clesiastical Supremacy  of  Henry  VIII.  declared  by  the  Irish 
parliament.  Christian  III.  establishes  the  Reformation  in  Den- 
mark. Paul  III.  appoints  Commissions  of  Reform.  The 
Counter-reformation. 

1538.  League    against    the    Turks.     Treaty    of    Ferdinand    with   John 

Zapolya.  Catholic  League  formed  in  Germany,  June  10.  Cal- 
vin banished  from  Geneva. 

1539.  The  Six  Articles  passed  in  England.     Conferences  in  Germany 

between  Catholics  and  Protestants :  Hagenau ;  Worms.  Refor- 
mation in  the  Duchy  of  Saxony  and  in  Brandenburg. 

1540.  Marriage  (the  fourth)  of  Henry  VIII.  with  Anna  of  Cleves.     He  is 

divorced,  and  marries  Catharine  Howard,  August  8.  Execu- 
tion of  Cromwell,  July  29.  Death  of  John  of  Zapolya.  Edict 
of  Fontainebleau.  Paul  III.  approves  of  the  statutes  of  the 
Jesuit  Order,  September  27. 

1541.  A  Diet  and  Conference  at  Ratisbon:  Contarini  present.     Expedi- 

tion of  Charles  V.  to  Algiers.  Soliman  reenters  Hungary. 
Calvin  recalled  to  Geneva. 

1542.  Execution  of  Catharine  Howard,   February  13.     War  rekindled 

between  Charles  V.  and  Francis  I.  Death  of  James  V.  of 
Scotland.  Regency  of  Mary  of  Guise.  Xavier  arrives  at  Goa 
in  the  East  Indies.  Reformation  in  Brunswick.  Flight  of 
Ochino  from   Italy.     Revival  of  the  Inquisition  in  Italy. 

1543.  AlHance   of    Charles   V.    and    Henry   VIII.    against    Francis   I. 


APPENDIX  I  4G9 

Marriage  (the  sixth)  of  Henry  VIII.  with  Catharine  Parr, 
July  12. 

1544.  Peace  of  Crespy  renews,  for  substance,  the  stipulations  of   the 

Peace  of  Cambray.  The  Turks  masters  of  a  great  part  of 
Hungary. 

1545.  Opening  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  December  13. 

1546.  Union  of  Maurice  of  Saxony  with  Charles  V.     The  Elector  of 

Saxony  and  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  are  put  under  the  ban  of 
the  Empire.  The  Smalcaldic  War.  Assassination  of  Cardinal 
Beaton.  Death  of  Luther,  February  18.  Diet  of  Ratisbon. 
Reformation  of  the  Electoral  Palatinate. 

1547.  Death  of  Henry  VHL,  January  28.     He  is  succeeded  by  Edward 

VI.  Death  of  Francis  I.,  March  31.  He  is  succeeded  by  Henry 
II.  Battle  of  Miihlberg,  April  24.  The  Pope  transfers  the 
Council  from  Trent  to  Bologna,  by  way  of  opposition  to  the 
influence  of  the  Emperor.  Truce  between  Ferdinand  and  the 
Turks. 

1548.  Diet  at  Augsburg.     Establishment  of  the  Interim,  May  15.     The 

Electoral  dignity  is  transferred  to  Maurice.  The  Leipsic  In- 
terim. Marriage  of  Jeanne  d'Albret  with  Anthony  of  Bour- 
bon, Duke  of  Vendome  —  the  parents  of  Henry  IV.  Death 
of  Sigismund  I.  of  Poland.  Succeeded  by  Sigismund  Augustus 
(Sigismund  II.).  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  is  taken  to  France,  being 
contracted  to  the  Dauphin. 

1549.  Death  of  Paul  III.,  November  11.     Book  of  Common  Prayer  is 

introduced.     Revised  in  1552. 

1550.  Julius  III.  is  elected  Pope,  February  7.     Martyr,  Bucer,  and  other 

reformers  from  the  Continent  are  received  in  England.  Hooper 
made  Bishop  of  Gloucester.     Vestment  controversy  begins. 

1551.  Renewed  war  between  France  and  Austria.     Henry  II.  allies  him- 

self with  the  German  Protestants.  Maurice  of  Saxony  takes  up 
the  cause  of  the  Protestants.     Capitulation  of  Magdeburg. 

1552.  Henry  II.  occupies  Metz,  Toul,  and  Verdun.     Maurice  obliges  the 

Emperor  to  fly  from  Innsbruck,  to  liberate  the  Elector  and  the 
Landgrave,  and  to  conclude  the  peace  of  Passau.  The  Em- 
peror lays  siege  to  Metz,  October.  Framing  of  the  Articles 
(42)  of  the  Church  of  England.     Execution  of  Somerset. 

1553.  Death  of  Edward  VI.     Mary  is  proclaimed  Queen  of  England, 

October  4.     Death  of  Servetus  at  Geneva,  October  27. 

1554.  Wyat's  Rebellion.     Restoration  of  Papal  Supremacy  in  England. 

Marriage  of  Mary  with  Philip  of  Spain,  July  25.  Charles  V. 
gives  up  Sicily  and  Naples  to  his  son  Philip. 

1555.  Diet  of  Augsburg.     Peace  of  Augsburg.     Ecclesiastical  Reserva- 

tion. Persecution  of  Protestants  in  England.  Death  of  Ridley 
and  Latimer,  October  15.  Death  of  Julius  III.  Accession  of 
Paul  IV.,  May  23.  Charles  V.  resigns  the  Netherlands  to 
Philip,  October  25.  League  of  Paul  IV.  with  France,  to  wrest 
Naples  from  Spain. 


470  THE  REFORMATION 

1556.  Abdication  of  Charles  V.,  January  16.    He  gives  up  the  empire  to 

Ferdinand,  August  27.  He  embarks  for  Spain,  September  17. 
Renewal  of  war  in  Italy  between  the  Pope  in  alliance  with 
France  and  Spain.  Death  of  Cranmer,  March  21.  Death  of 
Ignatius  Loyola,  July  31. 

1557.  England  declares  war  against  France.     Defeat  of  the  French  at 

St.  Quentin,  August  10.  Peace  between  the  Duke  of  Alva  and 
Paul  IV. 

1558.  Calais  is  taken  from  the  English  by  the  Duke  of  Guise,  January  8. 

Marriage  of  Mary  Stuart  with  the  Dauphin,  Francis,  April  24. 
Defeat  of  the  French  at  Gravelines,  July  13.  Death  of  Charles 
V.  at  the  monastery  of  Yuste,  September  21.  Death  of  Mary 
of  England,  November  17.     Accession  of  Elizabeth. 

1559.  Peace  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  April  3.     Death  of  Henry  II.,  July 

10.  He  is  succeeded  by  Francis  II.  Margaret  of  Parma  is 
made  Regent  of  the  Netherlands,  with  Granvelle,  Bishop  of 
Arras,  for  her  principal  minister.  Return  of  Philip  to  Spain. 
Persecution  of  Protestants  in  Spain.  Autos  da  fe.  Act  of 
Supremacy  in  England.  Court  of  High  Commission;  Act  of 
Uniformity.  Death  of  Paul  IV.,  August  18 :  succeeded  by  Pius 
IV.  General  Synod  of  the  Huguenots  in  Paris.  Contest  be- 
tween the  Regent  Mary  and  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation  in 
Scotland.     Return  of  John  Knox. 

1560.  Conspiracy  of  Amboise,  March.     Edict  of  Romorantin.     Coligny 

presents  the  Huguenot  petitions  at  Fontainebleau.  States- 
General  convoked  at  Orleans.  Navarre  under  surveillance. 
Arrest  and  trial  of  Conde.  Death  of  Francis  II.,  December  5. 
Accession  of  Charles  IX.  Catharine  de  Medici  attains  to  power. 
Death  of  Gustavus  Vasa.  Succeeded  by  Eric  XIV.  Elizabeth 
supports  the  Protestants  in  Scotland.  Treaty  of  Edinburgh. 
Protestantism  established  in  Scotland  by  act  of  Parliament, 
August  25.     Death  of  the  Regent  Mary,  August  10. 

1561.  Return  of  Mary  Stuart  to  Scotland.     Mary's  proclamation  (August 

25).  Her  first  interview  with  Knox.  Colloquy  of  Poissy, 
September. 

1562.  Edict  of  St.  Germain.     A  measure  of  toleration  is  granted  to  the 

Huguenots.  Massacre  of  Vassy,  March  1.  Civil  war  in  France. 
Capture  of  Rouen.  Death  of  Anthony  of  Navarre,  on  the 
Catholic  side,  November  17.  Battle  of  Dreux,  December  19. 
Revision  of  the  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England.  Reopening 
of  the  Council  at  Trent. 

1563.  Siege  of  Orleans  by  the  Catholics.     Assassination  of  the  Duke  of 

Guise,  February  18.  Edict  of  Amboise,  March  19.  Close  of 
the  Council  of  Trent. 

1564.  Granvelle  leaves  the  Netherlands.     Death  of  Ferdinand  I.     Acces- 

sion of  Maximilian  II.     Death  of  Calvin,  May  27. 

1565.  Conference  of  Bayonne.     Marriage  of  Mary  Stuart  with  Darnley, 

July  29.    Cruel  edicts  of  Philip  II.  against  the  Moors.    Cruel- 


APPENDIX  I  471 

ties  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Netherlands.  Death  of  Pius  IV., 
December  9. 

1566.  Accession  of  Pius  V.    The  Compromise  of  Breda.    The  Gueux. 

Iconoclasm  in  the  Netherlands.  Death  of  SoUman  II.  Murder 
of  Rizzio,  March  9.     Birth  of  James  VI.  of  Scotland,  June  19. 

1567.  Alva  sent  to  the  Netherlands.     The  "Council  of  Blood."    The 

Regent  Margaret  leaves  the  country,  December  30.  Renewal 
of  war  between  Catholics  and  Huguenots.  Murder  of  Darnley, 
February  10.  Mary  marries  Bothwell,  May  15.  Resigns  her 
crown  to  her  son,  with  Murray  as  Regent,  July  24. 

1568.  Flight  of  Mary  into  England.     Conflict  in  the  Netherlands.     Eg- 

mont  and  Horn  are  beheaded,  June  5.  Peace  of  Longjumeau, 
March  23.     Edict  against  the  Huguenots,  September  25. 

1569.  Renewed  insurrection  of  the  Huguenots.     Battle  of  Jarnac ;  Death 

of  Louis  de  Conde,  March  13.  Prince  Henry  of  Navarre  is 
recognized  as  head  of  the  Huguenot  party.  Battle  of  Moncon- 
tour,  October  3.     Alva's  scheme  of  taxation  in  the  Netherlands. 

1570.  Excommunication  of  Elizabeth  by  Pius  V.,  February  25.     Second 

phase  of  Puritanism :  Cartwright  opposes  Episcopacy.  Third 
Peace  of  St.  Germain.  Four  towns  given  up  to  the  Huguenots, 
August  15.  Assassination  of  the  Regent  Murray,  January  23. 
Synod  of  Sendomir  in  Poland ;  union  of  Protestants. 

1571.  Battle  of  Lepanto,  October  7;   defeat  of  the  Turks. 

1572.  Death  of  Pius  V.     Gregory  XIII.  succeeds  him.  May  13.     Exe- 

cution of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  June  2.  Union  of  Holland, 
Zealand,  and  Friesland,  under  William  of  Orange,  May.  Death 
of  Jeanne  d'Albret,  June  10.  Henry  of  Navarre  marries  Mar- 
garet of  Valois,  August  18.  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
August  24.  Death  of  Sigismund  II.  of  Poland;  end  of  the 
Jagellon  dynasty :  the  crown  made  elective.  Death  of  John 
Knox,  November  24. 

1573.  "Pax  Dissidentium "  in  Poland.     Henry,  Duke  of  Anjou,  elected 

king  of  Poland,  May  9.  Alva  leaves  the  Netherlands.  He  is 
succeeded  by  Requesens. 

1574.  Death  of  Charles  IX.,  May  30.    Accession  of  Henry  III.    Louis  of 

Nassau  is  defeated  and  slain.     Siege  of  Leyden. 

1576.  Organization   of   the   League   in   France.     Death  of   Requesens. 

Pacification  of  Ghent,  November  8.  Don  John  of  Austria 
succeeds  Requesens.  Death  of  Maximilian  II.  Accession  of 
Rudolph  II.  Jesuit  influence  in  the  imperial  court.  The 
Catholic  reaction  in  Germany. 

1577.  Drake  attacks  the  Spanish  ships  and  settlements. 

1578.  Treaty  of  Elizabeth  with  the  Netherlands,  January  7.     Death  of 

Don  John  of  Austria.     He  is  succeeded  by  Alexander  of  Parma. 

1579.  Utrecht  Union,  January  23.     The  ten  southern  provinces  submit 

to  Alexander  of  Parma. 

1580.  William  of  Orange  is  proscribed  by  Philip  II.     Rebellion  in  Ireland 

fomented  by  Spain. 


472  THE  REFORMATION 

1581.  The  United  Provinces  renounce  tlie  authority  of  Spain,  July  2. 

The  protectorate  of  the  Low  Countries  is  given  to  the  Duke  of 
Anjou,  brother  of  Henry  III. 

1582.  Successes  of  Parma  in  the  Netherlands. 

1583.  The  Duke  of  Anjou  returns  to  France. 

1584.  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  June  10.     Henry  of  Navarre  be- 

comes the  heir  of  the  crown.  Alliance  of  the  League  with 
Spain.  Treaty  of  Joinville,  December  31.  Assassination  of 
WiUiam  of  Orange,  July  10. 

1585.  Death  of  Gregory  XIII.,  April  10.     Accession  of  Sixtus  V.,  April 

24.  He  excommunicates  Henry  of  Navarre,  September  10. 
Surrender  of  Antwerp  to  Alexander  of  Parma,  August  17.  The 
United  Provinces  place  themselves  under  the  protection  of 
Elizabeth.  Leicester  sent  into  the  Netherlands.  Drake  at- 
tacks the  Spanish  settlements  in  the  West  Indies. 

1586.  War  of  the  three  Henries  —  Henry  III.,   Navarre,   and  Guise. 

League  between  James  VI.  and  Elizabeth. 

1587.  Execution  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  February  8.     Leicester  re- 

turns to  England.  Maurice  of  Orange  acquires  the  chief  direc- 
tion of  the  contest  in  the  Netherlands.  Sigismund  III.  of 
Sweden  is  elected  king  of  Poland. 

1588.  Hostile  attitude  of  the  League  towards  Henry  III.     Barricades 

in  Paris,  May  12.  Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  Meeting 
of  the  States-General  at  Blois.  Assassination  of  the  Duke  of 
Guise  and  the  Cardinal  his  brother,  by  Henry  III. 

1589.  Death   of   Catharine   de   Medici,   January   5.     Henry   III.   joins 

Navarre.  Assassination  of  Henry  III.,  August  1.  Henry  IV. 
is  resisted  by  the  League. 

1590.  Victory  of  Henry  IV.  at  Ivry  over  the  Duke  of  Mayenne,  March 

14.  Death  of  Sixtus  V.  Succeeded  by  Urban  VII.  Parma 
raises  the  siege  of  Paris. 

1591.  Bull  of   Gregory  XIV.   against   Henry   IV.     Death  of   Gregory 

XIV.,  October  15.  Succeeded  by  Innocent  IX.  His  death 
December  30.  Henry  IV.  invests  Rouen.  Renewed  inva- 
sion of  Hungary  by  the  Turks. 

1592.  Clement  VIII.  becomes  Pope,  January  30.     Parma  raises  the  siege 

of  Rouen.  Death  of  Parma,  December  2.  Presbyterianism  is 
fully  established  in  Scotland. 

1593.  Division  of  counsels  in  the  League.     Abjuration  of  Henry  IV., 

July  25.     Rout  of  the  Turks  in  Hungary. 

1594.  Henry  IV.  is  crowned  at  Chartres,  February  27.     He  enters  Paris, 

March  22.  Maurice  of  Orange  recovers  the  whole  territory  of 
the  United  Provinces. 

1595.  Henry  IV.  declares  war  against  Philip  II.,  January  17.     Clement 

VIII.  absolves  Henry  IV.,  September  17. 

1596.  Alliance  of  Henry  IV.  with  Elizabeth.     The  English  destroy  the 

Spanish  fleet  in  the  harbor  of  Cadiz. 
1598.  The  Edict  of  Nantes,  April  30.    The  Peace  of  Vervins  between 


APPENDIX  I  473 

France  and  Spain,  May  2.    Death  of  Philip  II.,  September  13. 
He  is  succeeded  by  Philip  III. 
1600.   Marriage  of  Henry  IV.  with  Mary  de  Medici.     Giordano  Bruno 
is  burned  at  the  stake,  February  17. 

1603.  Death  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  March  24.     Accession  of  James  I. 

1604.  Hampton  Court  Conference,  January  16.     Letter  of  Majesty  grants 

protection  to  the  Protestants  of  Bohemia. 

1605.  The  Gunpowder  Plot. 

1607.  Donauworth  seized  by  the  Duke  of  Bavaria. 

1608.  Protestants  Union  formed  in  Germany. 

1609.  Twelve  years'  truce  established  between  Spain  and  the  United 

Provinces. 

1610.  Catholic  League  formed  in  Germany  under  the  Duke  of  Bavaria. 

1611.  The  English  Bible  published  by  authority.     Gustavus  Adolphus 

becomes  king  of  Sweden. 

1612.  Matthias  becomes  emperor. 

1617.  James  I.  imposes  Episcopacy  on  Scotland. 

1618.  Revolt  of  the  Bohemians  against  Ferdinand  II.  in  defense  of  their 

religious  liberties. 

1619.  Accession  of  Ferdinand  II.  as  Emperor.     Election  of  Ferdinand  V., 

Elector  Palatine,  as  king  of  Bohemia. 

1620.  The  Elector  Palatine  stripped  of  his  dominions.     Persecution  of 

Puritans  in  England.     Landing  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth, 
December  21.     Convent  of  Port  Royal  established. 

1621.  Revolt  of  the  Huguenots. 

1622.  Congregatio  de  Propaganda  Fide  is  established :    (college  for  mis- 

sionaries founded,  1627). 

1624.  Richelieu  becomes  the  minister  of  Louis  XIII. 

1625.  Accession  of  Charles  I.     War  with  the  Huguenots  begins  in  France. 

Alliance  of  England,  Holland,  and  Denmark,  in  behalf  of  the 
Elector  Palatine. 

1626.  Death  of  Lord  Bacon.     Defeat  of  Mansfeld   by  Wallenstein  at 

Dessau. 

1627.  Mecklenburg  is  given  to  Wallenstein. 

1628.  Surrender  of  Rochelle.     Destruction  of  the  political  power  of  the 

Huguenots. 

1629.  Edict  of  Restitution,  March.     Peace  of  Ltibeck,  May. 

1630.  Wallenstein  dismissed  from  his  command.     Intervention  of  Gus- 

tavus Adolphus. 

1631.  The  capture  of  Magdeburg  by  Tilly,  May.     Battle  of  Leipsic; 

defeat  of  Tilly,  August  28.     Wallenstein  restored  to  his  com- 
mand, April. 

1632.  Battle  of  Lutzen :   death  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  November  16. 

1633.  Alliance  of  France  with  Sweden  and  the  Protestants :    treaty  of 

Heilbronn,  April  23.     Laud  is  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Galileo  is  forced  to  renounce  the  Copernican  theory. 

1634.  Defeat  of  the  Swedes  at  Nordlingen,  September  6. 

1635.  The  Peace  of  Prague,  May  30.     The  Edict  of  Restitution  is  given 

up  as  to  Saxony  and  Brandenburg. 


474  THE   REFORMATION 

1637.  Accession  of  Ferdinand  III.  as  Emperor. 

1638.  Bernard  of  Weimar  leads  the  anti-imperialist  forces. 

1639.  Death  of  Bernard.     Richelieu's  influence  predominant  in  the  war. 

1640.  The  Long  Parliament  assembles  in  England.     Accession  of  Fred- 

eric William,  the  Great  Elector. 

1642.  War  of  King  and  Parliament  in  England. 

1643.  Accession  of  Louis  XIV.     Westminster  Assembly  meets.    League 

and  Covenant  adopted  by  Parliament. 

1644.  Accession  of  Pope  Innocent  X. 

1645.  Battle  of  Naseby. 

1648.  Peace  of  Westphalia.    Termination  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

1649.  Execution  of  Charles  I. 

1650.  Death  of  Des  Cartes. 

1653.   Cromwell  is  made  Lord  Protector.    Condemnation  of  Jansenism 

by  Innocent  X. 
1658.   Death  of  Cromwell. 

1660.  Restoration  of  Charles  II. 

1661.  The  Savoy  Conference.     Restoration  of  Episcopacy  in  Scotland. 

Death  of  Mazarin.     Persecution  of  the  Huguenots. 

1662.  Ejection  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  under  the  Act  of  Uni- 

formity. 
1668.   Triple  alliance  against  Louis  XIV.,  to  compel  him  to  make  peace 

with  Spain. 
1670.   Secret  alliance  of  Charles  II.  and  Louis  XIV. 

1672.  William  III.  is  elected  Stadtholder. 

1673.  Declaration  of  Indulgence  by  Charles  II. 
1676.   Accession  of  Innocent  XL 

1678-9.   Peace  of  Nimeguen. 

1682.   Assembly  of  the  clergy  of  France :  four  Propositions  of  Gallicanism. 

1685.  Death  of  Charles  II.     Accession  of  James  II.     Revocation  of  the 

Edict  of  Nantes,  October  18. 

1686.  Revival  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission  by  James  II. 
1688.   William  III.  lands  at  Torbay.     Flight  of  James  11. 
1691.   Accession  of  Innocent  XII. 

1694.  Birth  of  Voltaire,  November  21. 

1695.  Peace   of   Ryswick,    September   20.     Louis   XIV.    acknowledges 

William  III.  as  king  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


APPENDIX  II 


A  LIST  OF  WORKS  ON  THE  REFORMATION » 

Works  in  General  History  relating  to  the  Period  of  the  Ref- 
ormation 

Thuanus  (De  Thou) :  Historiarum  sui  Temporis,  libri  138  (1546- 
1607).  First  complete  ed. ;  Orleans  (Geneva),  1620  seq.,  5  vols., 
fol.  (With  the  appendix  of  Rigault,  7  vols.,  London,  1733,  fol.) 
French  transl.  16  vols.,  4to,  London  (Paris),  1734. 

De  Thou,  son  of  Christophe  de  Thou,  President  of  the  Parliament 
of  Paris,  was  born  in  1553,  and  died  in  1617.  He  held  high  offices 
under  Henry  III.  and  Henry  IV.  He  was  a  moderate  Catholic, 
personally  conversant  with  the  men  and  events  of  his  time,  and  an 
upright  historian. 

Relazioni  degli  Ambasciatori  Veneti  al  Senato,  raccolte,  annotate,  ed 
edite  da  Eugenio  Alberi.     15  vols.     8vo.     Firenze,  1839-63. 

W.  Robertson:  History  of  Charles  V.  Ed.  by  W.  H.  Prescott,  with 
Supplement  on  the  Cloister  Life  of  the  Emperor.     3  vols.    8vo.     1856. 

History  of  the  European  States,  pubhshed  by  Heeren  and  Ukert.  64 
vols.     8vo.     1829-58. 

The  series  includes  Italy,  by  H.  Leo;  Netherlands,  by  Van  Kam- 
pen;  Denmark,  by  Dahlmann  (to  1523);  Sweden,  by  Geijer  and 
Carlson  (to  1680) ;    Poland,  by  Roepell,  etc. 

Heeren:  Handbuch  d.  Gesch.  d.  europaisch.  Staatensystems  u.  seiner 
Colonien.  5th  ed.  Gottingen,  1830.  Engl.  Translation  by  Ban- 
croft, 2  vols.     8vo.     1829 ;   also,  2  vols.,  Oxford,  1834, 

Von  Raumer:  Gesch.  Europas  seit  d.  Ende  d.  15.  Jahrh.  Leipzig, 
1832-50.     8  vols.     8vo. 

Hallam :  Introduction  to  the  Lit.  of  Europe,  in  the  15th,  16th,  and  17th 
centuries.     5th  ed.     3  vols.     8vo.     1855-56. 

Ranke  :  Fiirsten  u.  Volker  v.  Stldeuropa  im  16.  u.  17.  Jahrh.  Bd.  I. 
BerUn,  1827.  Die  rom.  Papste,  ihre  Kirche  u.  ihr  Staat  im.  16.  u. 
17.  Jahrh.  3  vols.  4th  ed.  Berhn,  1854-57.  8vo.  Translated 
by  Sarah  Austin :  History  of  the  Popes  of  Rome  during  the  16th  and 

*  This  catalogue  comprises,  of  course,  only  a  fractional  part  of  the  historical 
literature  pertaining  to  the  subject.  Not  to  speak  of  works  of  a  broader  scope, 
there  are,  in  Germany  especially,  numerous  local  histories  relating  to  this  period. 
In  preparing  the  list  above,  care  has  been  taken  to  set  down  the  proper  editions ; 
but  it  is  almost  impossible  to  attain  to  absolute  correctness  in  these  particulars. 

475 


476  THE  REFORMATION 

17th  centuries.  Lon.  1905.  1  vol.  4th  ed.  3  vols.  London,  1867. 
8vo.  This  is  one  of  the  most  correct  and  elegant  of  all  English  trans- 
lations from  the  German.  The  work  itself  is  of  the  highest  value. 
For  Ranke's  other  works  on  this  period  see  under  the  different  coun- 
tries. 

L.  Hausser:  Geschichte  d.  Zeitalters  d.  Reformation  (1517-1648). 
Berlin,  1868.  8vo.  Valuable,  especially  for  the  political  side  of 
the  history  of  this  period. 

Duruy :  Hist,  des  Temps  Modernes.  1  vol.  Paris,  1863.  12mo.  One 
of  a  series  of  lucid  and  compact  text-books,  for  use  in  the  schools 
of  France. 

Bayle:  Dictionnaire  historique  et  critique  (1st  ed.  1697),  4  vols,  Fol. 
Basel  and  Amsterdam,  1740.     Engl,  ed.,  10  vols.,  fol.,  1734-41. 

Bayle,  the  son  of  a  Huguenot  clergyman,  was  born  in  1647,  and 
died  in  1706.  Under  the  influence  of  Jesuits,  he  became  a  Roman 
Catholic,  but  repented  of  this  change,  and  became  one  of  the  pio- 
neers of  philosophical  skepticism  in  Europe.  Its  great  amount  of 
interesting  historical  and  biographical  details,  though  requiring  to 
be  critically  sifted,  gives  to  his  Dictionary  a  peculiar  and  permanent 
value. 

T.  H.  Dyer :  A  History  of  Modern  Europe  from  the  Fall  of  Constanti- 
nople.    3d  ed.     London,  1901. 

The  Cambridge  Modern  History,  Vol.  II.,  The  Reformation.  London 
and  New  York,  1904.  A  valuable  collection  of  treatises  on  the  sev- 
eral phases  of  the  Reformation,  by  competent  scholars;  enriched  by 
extensive  bibliographical  lists. 

H.  Baumgarten :  Karl  der  Fiinfte,  3  vols.     Stuttgart,  1885-92. 

E.  Armstrong :  Charles  the  Fifth,  2  vols.     London,  1902. 

J.  H.  Robinson :  History  of  Western  Europe.     New  York,  1903. 

L.  Pastor :  Geschichte  der  Papste.  Freiburg,  1888  seq.  English  trans- 
lation, London,  1891  seq. 

Universal  Histories.  (1)  In  England:  by  W.  C.  Taylor,  Modern  Hist., 
1838;  new  ed.  1866;  Ancient  Hist.,  1839;  new  ed.  1867.  By  A.  F. 
Tytler,  1801,  and  in  numerous  later  editions.  W.  Russell  and  others. 
History  of  Modern  Europe,  4  vols.  8vo.  1856.  (2)  In  Germany: 
AUgemeine  Geschichte  in  Einzeldarstellungen  —  herausgegeben  von 
Wilhelm  Oncken  (Editor  and  writer  of  portions)  :  General  His- 
tory, more  extensive  than  other  general  histories.  In  4  divisions; 
45  vols,  in  all ;  a  general  Index  to  the  whole ;  high  scholarly  character 
of  the  work.  In  div.  iii.  i.  Gesch.  d.  deutsch  Reformation,  by  Dr.  F. 
von  Bezold.  iii.  3.  1.  halfte,  Gesch.  d.  Gegen  Reformation,  by  Droysen  ; 
by  Schlosser,  19  vols.  1844-57;  by  H.  Leo,  6  vols.,  Halle,  1849  seq.; 
by  Becker,  4th  ed.  1900-1902.  12  vols. ;  by  Dittmar,  4th  ed.  1866, 
6  vols. ;  by  Weber,  2d  ed.  Leipzig,  1882-89,  15  vols.  (3)  In  Italy: 
by  Cesare  Cantu,  35  vols.,  8vo,  1837  seq.  10th  ed.  1883-91.  16 
vols.     French  transl.,  19  vols.,  8vo,  2d  ed.,  1854-55. 

History  of  all  Nations,  24  vols.,  edited  by  John  Henry  Wright ; 
(a  translation  with  additions  by  American  contributors)  of  AUgemeine 


APPENDIX    II  477 

Weltgeschichte  von  Flatke,  Herzberg,  Justi,  Pflugk,  Prutz,  Philipp- 
son;  Berlin  (1885-92,  12  vols.).  A  briefer  treatment,  in  part  by  the 
same  writers  who  contributed  to  Allgemeine  Geschichte  in  Einzeldar- 
stellungen,  herausg.  von  W.  Oncken.  Smyth :  Lectures  on  Modern 
History,  Sparks'  Am.  ed.,  2  vols.,  1841. 

Guizot:  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Civilization;  English  transl.  by 
Henry.     8vo.     New  York,  1842. 

Hegel :  Philosophie  d.  Geschichte ;  Werke,  ix.     Berlin,  1840.     8vo. 

General  Biographical  Works.  A.  Chalmers :  Biographical  Dictionary. 
32  vols.  8vo.  1812-17.  Biographie  Universelle,  52  vols.,  8vo,  et 
supplement,  volumes  53  a  85.  Paris,  1811-62.  Nouvelle  edition, 
revue,  corrigee,  et  augmentee,  45  vols.,  1842-65.  L'Art  de  verifier. 
les  Dates  des  faits  historiques,  etc.,  depuis  la  naissance  de  Jesus  Christ 
(to  1770).  18  vols.  8vo.  Paris,  1819.  Biographie  Generale  (nou- 
velle) depuis  les  temps  les  plus  recul^s,  avec  les  renseignements  biblio- 
graph.,  etc.  46  vols.  8vo.  1857-66.  The  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography  (English).     London,  1885-1903,  67  vols. 

Wetzer  u.  Welte  (Roman  Catholic) :  Kirchenlexicon  oder  Encyklo- 
padie  d.  kath.  Theologie.     12  vols.     Freiburg,  2  ed.     1886-1903. 

Herzog  (Protestant)  :  Real-Encycl.  flir  protestantische  Theologie  u. 
Kirche.  2d  ed.  21  vols. ;  and  Register,  1  vol.  Hamburg.  3d  ed., 
edited  by  Hauck,  1896  [-1905,  v.  1-16].     Leipzig. 

These  copious  works  embody  the  results  of  German  Theological 
study,  apart  from  Biblical  criticism,  in  the  branches  of  the  Church 
to  which  they  severally  belong. 

Works  in    Ecclesiastical    History,    treating    of    the    Reforma- 
tion AS  A  Whole 

Gieseler:  Lehrbuch  d.  Kirchengsch.  Bd.  iii.  in  2  pts.  Bonn,  1840- 
53.  8vo.  (The  4th  vol.  in  Prof.  H.  B.  Smith's  Engl,  translation, 
New  York,  1862.) 

H.  B.  Smith  :  History  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Chronological  Tables. 
New  York,  1861.  Fol.  This  embodies  a  great  amount  of  historical 
information  within  a  brief  compass. 

Raynaldus:  Annales  Ecclesiastici.  (1195-1565.)  Colon.  1694.  9 
vols.  Fol.  Raynaldus  is  the  most  eminent  of  the  continuators  of 
Baronius,  and  a  representative  of  Roman  orthodoxy. 

Natahs  Alexander :  Historia  eccl.  V.  et  N.  Test.  (16  centuries.)  Paris 
1699.  8  t.  Fol.  Ed.  Mansi,  Ferrara,  17.58.  Bassano,  1778.  Natalis 
is  the  champion  of  the  Gallican  ecclesiastical  theory. 

Hase  :  Kirchengsch.  (1  vol.)  Eng.  transl.  by  Blumenthal  and  Wing, 
New  York,  1856,  8vo.  Hase's  work  is  remarkable  for  its  conden- 
sation; it  is  founded  on  extensive  researches,  and  is  written  with 
much  vivacity. 

Baur :  Kirchengsch.  Bd.  iv.  Die  neuere  Zeit.  Leipz.,  1863.  8vo.  Baur 
is  one  of  the  most  perspicuous,  as  well  as  learned,  of  the  German 
Church  historians. 


478  THE  REFORMATION 

Guericke:  Kirchengsch.,  Bd.  3.  9th  ed.  Leipzig,  1867.  8vo.  Guer- 
icke  treats  of  the  Reformation  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  strict 
Lutherans. 

Hardwick:  History  of  the  Christian  Church  during  the  Reformation. 
2d  ed.,  1865.  8vo.  Hardwick  writes  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  AngUcan  Church.  His  manual  is  full  in  its  references  to 
authorities. 

Merle  d'Aubigne:  Hist,  de  la  Reformation  du  16me  Siecle:  Trans- 
lated from  the  French.     (In  numerous  editions.) 

Beausobre :   Hist,  de  la  Reformation.     Berlin,  1786.     4  vols.     8vo. 

Mosheim:  Institutiones  Hist.  Eccl.  Helmst.,  1764.  4to.  (Murdock's 
Translation.) 

Schrockh:  Kirchengeschichte  seit  d.  Reformation.  10  vols.  Leipzig, 
1804-1812. 

Kurtz :     Kirchengeschichte.     13th  German  ed.     Leipzig,  1899. 

Niedner:  Kirchengsch.  8vo.  Berlin,  1866.  One  of  the  most  learned 
and  valuable  of  all  the  German  manuals,  although  clumsy  in  its  lit- 
erary execution. 

J.  I.  Ritter  (Roman  Catholic) :  Kirchengsch.  6th  ed.  2  vols.  8vo. 
Bonn,  1862.     Moderate  and  candid  in  its  tone. 

Alzog  (Roman  Catholic) :  Handbuch  d.  Kirchengsch.  10th  ed.  1882. 
2  vols.     Mainz,  1866-68.     This  is  written  in  a  truly  scientific  spirit. 

Riffel  (Roman  Catholic) :  Kirchengsch.  d.  neuesten  Zeit  von  Anfang  d. 
16.  Jahrh.     3  vols.     8vo.     Mainz,  1842-47. 

H.  Stebbing :  History  of  the  Reformation.  2  vols.  (In  Lardner's  Cab. 
Cyclopaedia)  1836.     Lond.     16mo. 

J.  TuUoch:  Leaders  of  the  Reformation:  Luther,  Calvin,  Latimer, 
Knox.     8vo.     2d  ed.     Edinb.  1860. 

Stephen:     Essays   in    Eccl.    Biography.     4th    ed.     1860.     Lond.     8vo. 

M.  J.  Spalding  (Roman  Catholic) :  History  of  the  Reformation.  4th 
ed.     Baltimore,  1866.     8vo. 

F.  Seebohm :  The  Era  of  the  Protestant  Revolution.     London,  1874. 

G.  Kawerau  :  Reformation  und  Gegenre formation.  (Vol.  III. :  of  W. 
Moller,  Lehrbuch  der  Kirchengeschichte,  2d  ed.)  Freiburg, 
1899. 

W.  Walker :  The  Reformation.     New  York,  1900. 

K.  Mtiller :  Kirchengeschichte,  Vol.  II.     Tiibingen,  1902. 


Polemical  and  Critical  Writings 

(1)  Roman  Catholic.  Maimbourg:  Hist,  du  Luth^ranisme,  Paris,  1680: 
also,  Hist,  du  Calvinisme,  1682.  Bossuet :  Hist,  des  Variations  des 
J^gUses  Protest.,  Paris,  1688,  nouv.  ed.,  (Euvres  de  Bossuet,  tomes  v. 
et  vi.  Paris,  1836.  8vo.  Varillas :  Hist,  des  Revolutions  arrivees  en 
Matiere  de  Religion.     6  vols.     Paris,  1689.     4to. 

DoUinger :  Die  Reformation,  ihre  innere  Entwickelung  u.  ihre  Wirkungen. 
3  vols.     Regensburg,  1848.     The  work  is  carried  no  farther  than  the 


APPENDIX   II  479 

"Umfang  des  lutherischen  Bekenntnisses."  DolUnger's  work  is 
largely  a  collection  of  materials.  It  relates  chiefly  to  the  defects  of 
the  Reformers  and  of  their  work.  It  may  profitably  be  compared 
with  his  Lectures  on  the  Reunion  of  the  Churches  (Munich,  1872). 
Balmes :  Protestantism  and  Catholicity  compared  in  their  effects  on 
Civilization.  Transl.  from  the  Spanish.  8vo.  Baltimore,  1851.  An 
elaborate  controversial  work  in  reply  to  Guizot's  Lectures  on  Civiliza- 
tion, by  a  Spanish  Priest.  It  ends  with  the  sentence :  "  As  soon 
as  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ  upon  earth,  shall 
pronounce  sentence  against  any  one  of  my  opinions,  I  will  hasten  to 
declare  that  I  consider  that  opinion  erroneous,  and  cease  to  pro- 
fess it." 

Protestant.  Bayle :  Critique  Gen^rale  de  I'Histoire  du  Calvinisme  de 
Maimbourg,  Amsterdam,  1684.  3d  ed.  Hagenbach :  Vorlesungen 
liber  d.  Kirchengsch.  New  ed.  Leipz.,  1868,  seq.  (Chiefly  upon  the 
Ref .  in  Germany  and  Switzerland.)  Schenkel :  Das  Wesen  des 
Protestantismus.  2d  ed.  Schaffhausen,  1862.  8vo.  Hundeshagen : 
Der  Deutsche  Protestantismus.  Frankfort.  8vo.  3d  ed.  1849. 
(Relating  especially  to  German  Protestantism,  but  with  a  more  gen- 
eral bearing.)  Roussel :  Les  Nations  Cath.  et  les  Nations  Prot.  2  vols. 
Paris.     8vo.     1854.     Polemical  against  Romanism. 

Villers:  Essai  sur  I'Esprit  et  I'lnfluence  de  la  Ref.  de  Luther.  Paris, 
1804.     8vo.     Engl,  transl.,  Philadelphia,  1883. 

Laurent:  La  Reforme  (in  Etudes  sur  I'Histoire  de  I'Humanit^,  t.  viii.). 
8vo.    Brussels,  1861. 


The  German  and  Swiss  (Zwinglian  and  Calvinistic)  Reformation 

Contemporary  Sources  for  Both  Countries.  J.  Sleidan  (d.  1556) :  De 
Statu  Religionis  et  Reipublicse,  Carolo  V.  Csesare,  Commentarii. 
Folio.  Amsterdam,  1555;  best  ed.,  Frankfort,  1785-6.  3  vols.  8vo. 
English  translation,  by  Bohun,  London,  1689.  Folio.  3  vols.  4to. 
French  translation,  with  the  notes  of  Le  Courayer,  1767. 

Sleidan  was  born  at  Sleida,  near  Cologne,  in  1506.  After  com- 
pleting his  education,  he  lived  for  a  number  of  years  in  France,  was 
in  the  service  of  Francis  I.,  and  the  interpreter  of  his  embassy  at 
Hagenau  (1540).  In  1542,  he  entered  the  service  of  the  Smalcaldic 
League,  and  in  1545  was  commissioned  by  it  to  write  a  history  of  the 
Reformation.  He  accompanied  a  Protestant  embassy  to  England; 
went,  in  1551,  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  as  a  commissioner  from  Stras- 
burg,  and  in  1544,  in  the  same  capacity  to  the  Conference  of  Nurem- 
berg. He  was  versed  in  literature,  law,  and  political  science,  of  a 
dispassionate,  judicial  temper,  and  careful  in  his  researches. 

Later  Authorities.  Abr.  Scultetus  (Prof,  at  Heidelberg;  d.  1624):  An- 
nalium  Evangelii  passim  per  Europam  decimo  sexto  Salutis  partae 
seculo  renovati,  Decas  I.  et  II.  (from  1516-1536).  Heidelberg,  1618- 
20.     Reprinted  in  V.  d.  Hardt.  Hist,  liter.  Reformationis. 


480  THE  REFORMATION 

Gerdesius  (Prof,  at  Groningen,  d.  1765) :  Introd.  in  Hist.  Evangel,  sec. 
xvi.  passim  per  Europam  renovati.  Groning.  1744-52.  Tom.  iv. 
4to.  Also,  his  collection  of  documents:  Scrinium  Antiquarium,  etc. 
Tom.  viii.    4to.     1748-1763. 


History  of  the  German  Reformation 

Contemporary  Sources.  G.  Spalatinus  (d.  1545) :  Annales  Reforma- 
tionis  (published  by  Cyprian.     8vo.     Leipzig,  1718). 

Spalatin  was  born  in  1484,  and  died  in  1545.  He  was  court  preacher 
and  private  secretary  to  the  Electors  of  Saxony,  Frederic,  John,  and 
John  Frederic.  He  was  present  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  in  1518,  at 
the  election  of  Charles  V.  at  Frankfort,  in  1519,  at  his  coronation  at 
Cologne  in  1520,  at  the  Diet  of  Worms  in  1521,  at  the  Diets  of  Nurem- 
berg in  1523  and  1524,  in  1526  at  Spires,  in  1530  at  Augsburg,  in  1537 
at  the  Convention  at  Smalcald,  and  at  other  important  assemblies. 
He  took  part  in  the  visitation  of  the  Saxon  Churches.  He  was  an 
intimate  friend  and  correspondent  of  Luther,  Melancthon,  Bugenhagen, 
and  the  other  Saxon  Reformers. 

G.  Spalatin's  Historischer  Nachlass  u.  Briefe.  Bd.  i. :  Das  Leben  u.  die 
Zeitgeschichte  Friedrichs  des  Weisen.     8vo.     Jena,  1851. 

F.  Myconius  (d.  1546) :  Hist.  Reformationis  (by  Cyprian.  2d  ed.  8vo. 
Leipzig,  1718). 

Myconius  was  born  in  1491  and  died  in  1546.  He  was  held  in  high 
esteem  by  Luther  and  Melancthon,  and  efficiently  cooperated  with 
them  in  their  work. 

Ph.  Melancthon :  Hist.  Vitse  Mart,  Lutheri.  (Preface  to  Lutheri  0pp. 
Lat.,  Vitemberg,  1546;  and  in  separate  editions,  e.g.  Vol.  VI.  of 
the  Corpus  Reformatorum.) 

J.  Mathesius  (d.  1564) :  Historic  von  D.  Martin  Luther's  Anfang  Lehren, 
Leben,  etc.  (in  27  sermons).  4to.  Ntlrnberg,  1566.  Best  edition,  G. 
Losche,  Prag,  1896. 

Mathesius  became  a  student  at  Wittenberg  in  1528,  and  lived  for 
a  time  in  Luther's  family.     He  died  in  1564. 

J.  Camerarius:  De  Phil.  Melancthonis  Ortu,  totius  Vitse  Curriculo  et 
Morte,  etc.  8vo.     Leipzig,  1566. 

Camerarius  was  born  in  1500  and  died  in  1574.  He  was  a  pupil 
of  Luther  and  Melancthon,  and  was  especially  attached  to  the  latter. 

Cochlaeus  (Rom.  Cath.,  d.  1552) :  Commentaria  de  Actis  et  Scriptis  M. 
Lutheri,  etc.  (from  1517-1546).  Mogunt.,  1549;  Paris,  1565.  Co- 
logne, 1568. 

CochliEus  was  an  active  polemic.  He  was  at  the  Diet  of  Augs- 
burg in  1530. 

Surius  (Rom.  Cath.,  d.  1578) :  Comment,  brevis  Rerum  in  Orbe  Ges- 
tarum  ab  anno  1500  usque  1566.     Cologne,  1568. 

Collections  of  Documents.  Loscher  :  VollstS,ndigen  Reformations-acta 
u.   documenta   (from   1517-1519).     3   vols.     4to.     Leipzig,    1720-29. 


APPENDIX  II  481 

Tetzel:  Hist.  Bericht  v.  Anfang  u.  Fortgang  d.  Ref.  Luth.  (by  Cy- 
prian. Leipzig,  1718).  Kapp:  Kleine  Nachlese  zur  Ref.  Gsch.  ntitz- 
licher  Urkunden.  Leipzig,  1727.  Strobel :  Miscellaneen  u.  Bei- 
trage  zur  Lit.  Niirnb.,  1775  seq.,  1784  seq.  Forstemann :  Archiv 
fiir  die  Gsch.  d.  Ref.,  Halle,  1831  seq.;  neues  Urkundenbuch,  Ham- 
burg, 1842.  Neudecker :  Urkunden  aus  d.  Ref .-Zeit,  Cassel,  1836. 
Merkwtirdige  Actenstiicke  aus  der  Zeitalt.  d.  Ref.,  Niirnb.  1838.  Neue 
Beitrage  zur  Gsch.  d.  Ref.     2  vols.     Leipzig,  1841. 

O.  Schade :  Satiren  u.  Pasquille  a.  d.  Ref.-Zeit.  Hannov.  1856-8  (3 
vols.).  Johannsen:  Die  Entwickl.  d.  prot.  Geistes  e.  Sammlung 
d.  wichtigsten  Dokumente  v.  Worms.  Edict  b.  z.  Sp.  Prot.  Copen- 
hagen, 1830.  H.  van  d.  Hardt :  Historia  Literaria  Reformationis. 
Franc,  and  Leipzig,  1717. 

K.  Hegel :  Chroniken  der  deutschen  Stadte.  29  vols.  Leipzig,  1869- 
1902. 

Archiv  ftlr  Oesterreichische  Geschichte.     86  vols.     Vienna,  1848-1903. 

A.  Gindely :  Monumenta  Historica  Bohemica.     Prag,  1865-70. 

W.  Altmann :  Ausgewahlte  Urkunden  zur  brandenburg-preussischen 
Verfassungs-  und  Verwaltungsgeschichte.     Berlin,  1897. 

P.  Tschakert :  Urkundenbuch  zur  Reformationsgeschichte  des  Herzog- 
thums  Preussen.     Leipzig,  1900. 

C.  A.  Ackermann :  Bibliotheca  Hessiaca.     Cassel,  1884-99. 

M.  Lenz  :  Briefwechsel  Landgraf  PhiUpps  von  Hessen  mit  Bucer.  Berlin, 
1880  seq. 

G.  Buchholtz  :  Bibliothek  der  sachsischen  Geschichte.    Leipzig,  1902  seq. 

C.  A.  Burckhardt :  Ernestinische  Landtagsakten.     Jena,  1902. 
Publikationen  der  sachische  Kommission  fiir  Geschichte  (in  progress). 

D.  Schafer :  Wtirttembergische  Geschichtequellen.     Stuttgart,  1894  seq. 
V.  Ernst:  Briefwechsel  des  Herzogs  Christoph  von  Wtlrttemberg.    Stutt- 
gart, 1899-1901. 

H.  Birck :  Die  politische  Correspondenz  der  Stadt  Strassburg  in  Zeitalter 
der  Reformation.     Strassburg,  1882  seq. 

Works  of  the  Reformers.  Luther's  Works :  Wittenberg  ed.,  the  German, 
1539-1559,  12  vols.,  fol. ;  the  Latin,  1545-1558,  7  vols.,  fol. ;  Jena 
ed.,  the  German,  8  vols.,  fol.;  the  Latin,  4  vols.,  fol.,  1555-1558 
(from  the  autographs,  except  the  first  part  of  the  German  works) ; 
Altenburg  ed.,  the  German  works  alone,  10  vols.,  1661-1664.  Sup- 
plement, vol.  to  all  the  earlier  edd.,  by  Zeidler,  Halle,  1702.  Leip- 
zig ed.,  22  vols.,  fol.,  1729-1740.  Halle  ed.,  by  J.  G.  Walch  (the 
most  complete),  24  Thle.,  1740-1750.  In  the  last  two  of  these  edd., 
Latin  works  only  in  a  German  transl.  Erlangen  ed.,  by  Plochmann 
u.  Irmischer,  67  vols.,  1826-79.  Die  reformatorischen  Schriften 
Luthers  in  chronol.  Folge,  edited  by  K.  Zimmermann.  4  vols.  Darm- 
stadt, 1846-50.  Vollstandige  Auswahl  Luther's  Hauptschriften,  by 
Otto  von  Gerlach,  1840-1848.  24  vols.  (Fabricius,  Centifohum 
Luth.  s.  notitia  literaria  scriptorum  de  Luthero  editorum,  Hamburg, 
1728.)  Luther's  Briefe,  Sendschreiben  u.  Redenken,  edited  by  De 
Wette,   6  vols.     1825-56.     Luther's  Briefwechsel,   a  supplem.   vol., 


482  THE   REFORMATION 

by  Burkhardt  (1866).  The  best  edition  of  Luther's  works  is  that  in 
course  of  publication  under  the  editorship  of  F.  Knaake  and  others, 
Weimar,  1883  seq.     20  vols,  have  appeared. 

For  the  95  theses  and  the  great  tracts  of  1520  in  English  translation, 
see  Wace  and  Buchheim :  First  Principles  of  the  Reformation.  London 
and  Philadelphia,  1885. 

Melancthon's  Works:  Basel.  1541.  5  vols.  Fol.  C.  Peucer's  ed., 
Wittenberg,  1562,  4  vols.,  fol. ;  Bretschneider's  ed.  (in  the  Corpus 
Reformatorum),  1834-1860,  28  vols.,  4to. 

Jonas's  Works,  edited  by  Kawerau,  Halle,  1884,  1885;  Bugenhagen's 
Brief wechsel,  edited  by  Vogt,  Stettin,  1888 ;  Erasmus's  Works,  edited 
by  Le  Clerc,  Leyden,  1703-06,  10  vols. 

Historical  Works.  Seckendorf  (d.  1692) :  Commentarius  Historicus 
et  Apologeticus  de  Lutheranismo,  libb.  iii.  ed.  2.     Leipzig,  1694. 

Seckendorf  was  born  in  1626,  and  died  1692.  He  was  educated 
at  Strasburg.  Under  the  Duke  of  Gotha,  Duke  Maurice  of  Zeitz, 
and  the  Elector  Frederic  IIL  of  Brandenburg,  he  held  responsible 
offices.  He  was  a  statesman  of  thorough  education  and  of  exemplary 
integrity.  His  History,  which  was  occasioned  by  the  work  of  the 
Jesuit  Maimbourg,  was  founded  on  the  most  industrious  examination 
of  original  documents. 

Salig:  VoUstandige  Hist.  d.  Augsb.  Confession  u.  derselb.  Apologie 
(1517-1562).     3  Th.     Halle,  1730-1745. 

Planck:  Gsch.  d.  Entstehung,  d.  Veranderungen,  u.  d.  Bildung  uns. 
prot.  Lehrbegriffs  b.  z.  d.  Concordienformel.  6  vols.  2  ed.  Leip- 
zig, 1791-1800.  Woltmann:  Gsch.  d.  Ref.  in  Deutschland.  3  Th. 
Altona,  1801-1805. 

Spieker:  Gsch.  Dr.  M.  Luthers  u.  der  durch  ihn  bewirkten  Kirchenref. 
in  Deutschl.     1  vol.  (to  1521).     Berhn,  1818. 

Marheineke  :  Gsch.  d.  deutsch.  Ref.  4  Th.  Berlin,  1816-34  (a  second 
ed.  of  Parts  1  and  2,  1831).  This  is  still  one  of  the  best  of  the  histories 
of  the  German  Reformation.  Gsch.  d.  deutsch.  Reformation,  by  von 
Bezold  (Berlin,  1890),  quite  valuable.  See  Oncken,  AUgem.  Gsch. 
(p.  568).  Ch.  Villers:  Essai  sur  I'Esprit  et  I'lnfluence  de  la  Ref.  de 
Luther.  Paris,  1804 :  translated  into  German,  2d  ed.,  1828,  and  into 
English,  Phil.,  1833. 

K.  A.  Menzel:  Neuere  Gsch.  d.  Deutschen  v,  d.  Ref.  b.  z.  Bundesacte. 
Breslau,  1826-39.    Translated  into  English,  3  vols.    8vo.   London,  1849. 

Kohlrausch:     Geschichte    Deutschlands.     Engl,    transl.     8vo.     1848. 

L.  Ranke  :  Deutsche  Gsch.  im  Zeitalter  d.  Reformation.  7  vols.,  4th 
ed.,  1869.  London  and  New  York,  1905.  1  vol.  Translated  in  part, 
by  Sarah  Austin.     3  vols.     8vo.     1845-47. 

K.  Hagen:  Deutschland's  literar.  u.  relig.  Verhaltnisse  im  Ref.  Zeit- 
alter. 3  vols.  Erlangen,  1841-44.  D.  F.  Strauss :  Ulrich  von  Hut- 
ten.  2d  ed.,  1871.  Ward:  House  of  Austria  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  London,  1869.  Trench:  Gustavus  Adolphus  in  Germany, 
and  other  lectures  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  2d  ed.,  1872.  Droy- 
sen:    Leben  von  Gustav.  Adolf.     1868. 


APPENDIX  II  483 

Philip  Schaff :  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  Vol.  VI.    New  York,  1888. 

J.  Janssen  :  Geschichte  des  deutschen  Volkes  seit  dem  Ausgang  des 
Mittelalten,  edited  by  L.  Pastor,  Freiburg,  1897 ;  English  translation, 
London,  1896-1903,  6  vols. 

K.  Lamprecht :  Deutsche  Geschichte,  Vol.  V.     Berlin,  1894. 

K.  W.  Nizsch :  Geschichte  des  deutschen  Volkes  bis  zum  Augsburger 
Religionsfrieden.     3  vols.     Leipzig,  1883-85. 

S.  R.  Gardiner  :  The  Thirty  Years'  War.  London,  1874.  A.  Gindely : 
The  Thirty  Years'  War.     English  translation.  New  York,  1898. 

C.  R.  L.  Fletcher :  Gustavus  Adolphus.     New  York,  1890. 

W.  W.  Rockwell  :  Die  Doppelehe  des  Landgrafen  Philipp  von  Hessen. 
Marburg,  1904. 

L.  Keller  :  Die  Reformation  und  die  alteren  Reformpartien.  Leipzig, 
1885. 

Lutheran  Theology.  Melancthon  :  Loci  Communes,  in  original  form, 
edited  by  PUtt  and  Kolde.  3d  ed.,  1900.  T.  Harnack :  Luther's 
Theologie,  mit  besondere  Beziehung  auf  seine  Versohnungs- 
und  Erlosungslehre,  1862,  1886.  J.  Kostlin :  Luther's  Theologie 
in  ihrer  geschichtlichen  Entwicklung  und  ihrem  inneren  Zusam- 
menhange,  1863 ;  new  editions,  1883,  1901 ;  in  English  translation  by 
Hay,  The  Theology  of  Luther,  Philadelphia,  1897.  G.  Plitt :  Einleitung 
indie  Augustana,  1867, 1868.  The  appropriate  sections  of :  A.  Harnack : 
Lehrbuch  der  Dogmengeschichte,  3d  ed.,  Freiburg,  1897 ;  F.  Loofs : 
Leitfaden  zum  Studium  der  Dogmengeschichte,  3d  ed.,  Halle,  1893 
(a  new  edition  will  soon  appear) .  R.  Seeberg :  Lehrbuch  der  Dog- 
mengeschichte, Erlangen,  1898.  G.  P.  Fisher :  History  of  Christian 
Doctrine,  New  York,  1896. 

Lives  of  the  German  Reformers.  Melchior  Adamus:  Vitae  Germanorum 
Theologorum,  etc.  Heidelberg,  1620.  Ulenberg  (a  Protestant, 
then  a  Catholic,  d.  1617) :  Vitae  haeresiarcharum  Lutheri,  Melanc- 
thonis,  Majoris,  Illyrici,  Osiandri.  Colon.,  1589.  Lives  of  Erasmus: 
J.  Le  Clerc :  Vie  d'firasme,  Amsterdam,  1703.  S.  Knight :  The  Life 
of  Erasmus,  Cambridge,  1728.  F.  Seebohm :  The  Oxford  Reformers, 
London,  1867.  J.  A.  Froude :  Life  and  Letters  of  Erasmus,  London, 
1894.  E.  Emerton  :  Desiderius  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  New  York, 
1899.  Lives  of  Luther:  by  Melancthon;  by  Mathesius  (see  above); 
by  Walther,  Jena,  1704-54,  2  Th. ;  by  Keil,  Leipzig,  1753,  4  Th. ; 
by  Ukert,  Gotha,  1817,2  Th. ;  by  Jakel,  1840;  by  Jurgens  [up  to 
1517],  Leipzig,  1846  seq.,  3  vols. ;  by  Gelzer,  with  Konig's  illustra- 
tions, Hamburg,  1847-51  (translated,  London  and  New  York,  1857) ; 
by  Stang,  Stuttgart,  1835-38 ;  by  Pfitzer,  Stuttgart,  1836 ;  by  Genthe, 
Halle,  1841-45 ;  by  Wildenbaln,  Leipzig,  1850-52,  4  Th. ;  by  Ledder- 
hose,  Speir,  1836;  by  Meurer,  Dresden,  3d  ed.,  1870;  by  DoUinger 
(from  the  Kirchenlexicon) ,  translated,  London,  1851;  by  Audin, 
Paris,  2  vols.,  translated,  Phil.,  1841;  a  storehouse  of  calumnies;  by 
Michelet,  translated  from  the  French,  in  Bohn's  Library;  Hare, 
Vindication  of  Luther  against  his  English  assailants.  1854.  This  is 
a  Reply  to  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton  (Discussions  in  Philosophy  and  Liter- 


484  THE  REFORMATION 

ature) ;  also,  to  Hallam,  to  J.  H.  Newman,  and  W.  G.  Ward.  The 
charge  of  "  Rationalism "  and  other  imputations  against  Luther  are 
fully  considered,  and  various  mistakes  of  Hamilton  are  exposed,  J. 
KosTLiN :  Martin  Luther,  sein  Leben  und  seine  Schriften,  2  vols. 
Leipzig,  1875.  T.  Kolde:  Martin  Luther,  Eine  Biographie,  2  vols. 
Gotha,  1884,  1893.  A.  E.  Berger:  Martin  Luther  in  Kulturge- 
schichtHcher  Darstellung,  2  vols.,  BerUn,  1895.  H.  E.  Jacobs:  Mar- 
tin Luther,  New  York,  1898.  T.  M.  Lindsey :  Luther  and  the  German 
Reformation,  Edinburgh,  1900. 

Lives  of  Melancthon :  by  Camerarius  (see  above) ;  Als  Prseceptor  Ger- 
manise, by  A.  H.  Niemeyer,  Halle,  1817 ;  by  Facius,  1832 ;  by  Galle, 
Charakteristik  Melancthons,  2d  ed.,  Halle,  1845;  by  Matthes,  1841; 
Leben  u.  Wirken  Phil.  Mel.,  Altenb.,  2d  ed.  1846;  by  Ledderhose 
(translated  by  G.  F.  Krotel,  New  York,  1854) ;  by  Cox,  London, 
1815,  Boston,  1835.  J.  W.  Richard:  Philip  Melanchthon,  New 
York,  1898.  G.  EUinger,  Phihp  Melanchthon,  Ein  Lebensbild,  Berlin, 
1902. 

Leben  u.  ausgewahlte  Schriften  d.  Vater  u.  Begrlinder  d.  luth.  Kirche, 
1861  seq. :  Melancthon,  by  C.  Schmidt ;  Brenz,  by  J.  Hartmann ; 
Urbanus  Rhegius,  by  G.  Uhlhorn;  Justus  Jonas,  by  Cruciger;  P. 
Speratus,  L.  Spengler,  N.  v.  Amsdorf,  Paul  Eber,  M.  Chemnitz,  D. 
Chrytaeus,  by  Pressel. 

G.  Bayer :  Johannes  Brenz,  Stuttgart,  1899.  J.  W.  Baum :  Capito  und 
Bucer,  Elberfeld,  1860.  A.  Erichson :  Martin  Butzer,  Strassburg, 
1891.  L.  W.  Graepp:  Johannes  Bugenhagen,  Glitersloh,  1897. 
H.  Barge :  Andreas  Bodenstein  von  Karlstadt,  Leipzig,  1905.  G. 
Kawerau:  Johann  Agricola,  Berlin,  1881.  W.  MoUer,  Andreas 
Osiander,  Elberfeld,  1870.  P.  E.  Mosen :  Hieronymus  Emser,  Leipzig, 
1890.    T.  Wiedemann,  Johann  Eck,  Regensburg,  1865. 

The  History  of  the  Swiss  (Zwinglian  and  Calvinistic)  Reforma- 
tion 

Contemporary  Sources.  B.  Weiss  (d.  1531) :  Kurze  Beschreibung  d. 
Glaubensanderung  im  Schweizerlande  (in  Fllsslin's  Beitrage,  iv.  32). 
V.  Anshelm:  Berner  Chronik  bis  1526  (Berne,  1825-33).  H.  Bul- 
LiNGER  (d.  1575) :  Reformationsgeschichte  (to  1532).  Frauenfeld, 
1838-40.  BuUinger  was  born  in  1504,  succeeded  Zwingli  at  Zurich 
in  1531,  and  died  in  1575.  He  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  the  Reformers  of  his  age,  and  an  entirely  trustworthy  writer.  J. 
Salat  (Catholic),  Valentin  Tschudi  (Catholic),  Egidius  Tschudi 
(Catholic) :  authors  of  works  extant  in  manuscripts :  See  Gieseler 
IV.  i.  1.  Fromment:  Les  Actes  et  les  Gestes  de  la  Cite  de  Geneve. 
Geneve,  1536.  8vo.  Fromment  was  a  Frenchman,  an  associate  of 
Farel,  and  one  of  the  first  to  preach  Protestantism  in  Geneva.  Later 
in  life,  he  was  deposed  from  the  ministry  and  held  the  office  of  Notary. 
His  Chronicle  covers  the  period  from  1532  to  1536,  and  is  a  trust- 
worthy narrative.  V.  Tschudi :  Chronik  der  Reformationsjahre,  1521- 
1531,  edited  by  J.  Strickler,  Bern,  1889. 


APPENDIX  II  485 

B.  Wyss:  Chronik,  edited  by  G.  Finsler.     Basel,  1901. 

Original  Documents.  Works  of  the  Reformers:  see  below.  Miscel 
lanea  Tigurina.  3  Th.  Zurich,  1722-24.  J.  C.  Fiisslin :  Beitrage  z. 
Erlaut  d.  Kirchen-Reformationsgesch.  d.  Schweizerlandes.  Zurich, 
1741-53.  Ejusd.  Epistolae  ab.  Eccl.  Helvet.  Reformatoribus  vel  ad 
eos  scriptse.  Tiguri,  1742.  J.  J.  Simler:  Samralung  alter  u.  neuer 
Urkunden  z.  Beleuchtung  d.  Kirchengesch.  vornehmlich  des  Schwei- 
zerlandes. Zurich,  1767.  E.  Egli :  Actensammlung  zur  Geschichte 
der  Zliricher  Reformation,  Zurich,  1879. 

J.  Strickler :  Actensammlung  zur  schweizerischen  Reformationsgeschichte, 
Zurich,  1877-1884. 

Works  of  the  Reformers.  U.  Zwinglii  opera,  first  complete  ed.  by  Schuler 
and  Schulthess,  8  vols.  Zurich,  1828-42.  Sammtliche  Werke  unter 
Mitwirkung  des  Zwingli-Vereins  in  Zurich  v.  Egli  und  Finsler, 
Berlin,  1904.  S.  M.  Jackson:  ZwingU  Selections,  New  York,  1901. 
J.  Calvini,  opera  theologica,  12  vols.,  Geneva,  1556;  9  vols.,  Amster- 
dam, 1667.  Best  edition  by  Baum,  Cunitz,  and  Reuss :  Bruns.  1863- 
1900,  59  vols.  English  translation  of  Calvin's  Writings,  52  volumes, 
Edinburgh,  1842  seq.  Letters  of  Calvin,  edited  by  Bonnet  :  English 
translation,  4  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1855. 

Historical  and  Biographical  Works.  J.  H.  Hottinger  (d.  1667) :  Hist. 
Eccl.  1655-57.  J.  J.  Hottinger  (d.  1735) :  Hist.  d.  Ref.  in  d.  Eidge- 
nossenschaft.  4  Th.  Zurich,  1708.  Basnage :  Hist,  de  la  Religion 
des  Eglises  Reform:  a  la  Haye  (1690),  1721,  4to.  A.  Ruchat: 
Hist,  de  la  Reformation  de  la  Suisse.  6  vols.  Geneva,  1727  seq.  L. 
Wirz :  Neuere  helvet.  Kirchengeschichte.  2  vols,  (to  1523) ;  the 
second  by  M.  Kirchhofer,  1813,  1819.  Hess :  Ursprung,  Gang  u. 
Folgen  d.  durch  Zwingli  in  Ziirich  bewirkten  Glaubensverbesserung 
u.  Kirchenreform.  Zurich,  1819.  J.  v.  Muller  u.  R.  G.  Blotzheim : 
Geschichte  schweizerischer  Eidgenossenschaft,  continued  by  J.  J. 
Hottinger  (to  1531).  Zurich,  1825  and  1829.  Gaberel :  Hist,  de 
I'Eglise  de  Geneve,  2  vols.,  1853.  D'Istria:  La  Suisse  Allemande. 
Switzerland,  the  Pioneer  of  the  Ref.,  2  vols.  London,  1858.  Hun- 
deshagen :  Zur  Charakteristik  ZwingUs,  etc.  Studien  u.  Kritiken, 
1862.  Mignet :  Memoires  Hist.  3d  ed.  Paris,  1854.  It  contains 
an  Essay  on  Calvinism  in  Geneva.  Mosheim  :  Neue  Nachr.  von  Ser- 
vet;  also,  Ketzergsch.,  ii.  (1748).  Charpenne :  Histoire  de  la  Re- 
forme  de  Geneve.  8vo.  1861.  A.  Roget:  Histoire  du  peuple  de 
Geneve,  Geneva,  1870-1883 ;  E.  Choisy :  La  theocratic  a  Geneve  au 
temps  de  Calvin,  Geneva,  1897.  E.  Choisy :  L'Etat  chretien  calviniste 
a  Geneve  au  temps  de  Beze,  Geneva,  1902. 

Lives  of  Zwingli:  by  Myconius  (see  above) ;  by  J.  G.  Hess,  Engl,  transl., 
by  L.  Aiken,  1812,  and  translated  from  the  French  into  the  German, 
with  an  added  Appendix,  by  L.  Usteri,  1811 ;  by  J.  M.  Schuler,  1819; 
by  Roeder,  1855 ;  by  J.  Tichler,  1827 ;  by  Robbins,  Bib.  Sacra,  vols, 
ii.  and  iii. ;  by  Christoffel  (in  the  Leben  u.  Ausgewahlte  Schriften 
d.  Vater  u.  Begriinder  d.  reformirten  Kirche),  1857;  by  J.  C.  Mori- 
kofer:    Ulrich    Zwingli    nach   den   urkundlichen    Quellen,    Leipzig, 


486  THE  REFORMATION 

1867-69.  R.  Stahelin:  Huldreich  Zwingli,  Basel,  1895-97.  S.  M. 
Jackson:  Huldreich  Zwingli,  New  York,  1901.  S.  Simpson:  Life  of 
Ulrich  Zwingli,  New  York,  1902. 

Lives  of  Beza.  J.  W.  Baum  :  Theodor  Beza,  Leipzig,  1843,  1852.  H.  M. 
Baird,  Theodore  Beza,  New  York,  1899.  Other  Swiss  Reformers. 
Bertold  Haller,  oder  die  Reformation  von  Bern,  by  M.  Kirchhofer, 
Zurich,  1828.  Lebensgeschichte  von  Oekolampadius,  by  Hess.  Zurich, 
1793 ;  by  Herzog,  2  vols.,  Basel,  1843 ;  Das  Leben  Wilh.  Farels,  v.  M. 
Kirchhofer,  2  vols.  Zurich,  1831.  Lives  of  Farel,  Fromment,  Viret, 
by  Cheneviere,  Geneve,  1835.  Life  of  Farel,  by  Schmidt.  Strasburg, 
1834.  Life  of  Viret,  by  Jaquemont.  Strasburg,  1836.  In  the 
series,  entitled,  Leben  u.  Ausgewahlte  Schriften  d.  Vater  u.  Begrtln- 
der  d.  fer.  Kirche :  Zwingli,  by  Christoffel ;  Oecolampadius  and  My- 
conius,  by  Hagenbach;  Calvin,  by  Stahelin;  Capito  and  Bucer,  by 
Baum;  BuUinger,  Haller,  and  Leo  Juda,  by  Pestalozzi;  Capito  and 
Beza,  by  Heppe;  Peter  Martyr,  by  Schmidt,  1859;  Olevanius  and 
Ursinus,  by  Sudhoff,  1858 ;  Farel  and  Viret,  by  C.  Schmidt ;  Vadian 
and  Blaurer,  by  Pressel ;  Knox,  by  Brandes. 

Lives  of  Calvin,  by  Beza,  translated  by  Gibson,  Phila.,  1836 ;  by  Water- 
man, London,  1813;  by  T.  Smyth,  Phil.,  1835;  by  Dyer,  London, 
1849,  8vo;  by  Audin,  5th  ed.,  Paris,  1851 ;  by  Henry,  3  vols.,  Ham- 
burg, 1835-1844,  translated  into  Enghsh  by  Stebbing,  1844;  by  E. 
StaheUn,  1863;  by  Bungener,  2d  ed.,  12mo,  1863;  by  Guizot  (St. 
Louis  and  Calvin) ;  by  Kampschulte  (Roman  Catholic),  vol.  i.,  1869. 
vol.  ii.,  1899.  A.  Lefranc  :  La  Jeunesse  de  Calvin,  Paris,  1888. 
P.  Schaff:  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  Vol.  VIL,  New  York, 
1892.  E.  DouMERGUE  :  Jean  Calvin,  les  hommes  et  les  choses  de  son 
temps.  A  monumental  work  to  be  completed  in  five  vols.,  3  vols, 
published,  Lausanne,  1899-1905. 


The  Reformation  in  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden 

In  Heeren  u.  Ukert's  Staatengeschichte :  Danemark,  by  Dahlmann. 
Harald  Hurtfeld :  Danische  Chronik.  Copenhagen,  1604.  J.  Baez : 
Inventarium  Eccl.  Sueco-Gothor.  Lincop.,  1642.  4to.  Celsius: 
Gsch.  Gustav.  I.,  from  the  Swedish.  Copenhagen  and  Leipzig,  1754. 
Pontoppidan:  Annales  Ecclesia?  DaniciB.  Copenhagen,  1741.  Also, 
Reformationshistorie  d.  dan.  Kirche,  1734.  Milnter :  Kirchengsch.  v. 
Dan.  u.  Norw.  1823-33.  Also,  Danske  Reformationshistorie.  Copen- 
hagen, 1802.  Schinmeier:  Lebensbeschreib.  d.  drei  schwed.  Refor- 
matoren.  Ltib.,  1783.  Troil :  Skrifter  och  Handlingar  till  uplisning 
i.  Svenska  Kyrko  och  Reformations-Historia.  Upsala,  1790.  Thy- 
selius:  Handlingar  till  Sverges  Reformations  och  Kyrkohistoria  under 
Konung  Gustaf  I.  (1523-61).  Stockholm,  1841-45.  By  the  same 
author :  Einfiihrung  d.  Ref.  in  Schweden  bis  1527  (in  Zeitschr.  f.  hist. 
Theol.  1846).  Romer :  De  Gustavo  I.  rer.  sacr.  in  Suecia  instauratore. 
Ultraj,  1840.     A.  Theiner:    Versuche  d.  heilig.  Stuhls  in  d.  letzten 


APPENDIX  II  487 

drei  Jahrh.,  den  Norden  wieder  mit  d.  Kirche  zu  vereinen.  Augs- 
burg, 1838.  Miinter :  Symbolse  ad  illustrand  Bugenhagii  in  Dania 
Commorationem.  Havn.,  1836.  By  the  same :  De  Confutatione 
latina  quae  Apologise  Evangelicor.  in  Comitiis  Havemensib.  anno 
1530,  traditae  opposita  est.  Havn.,  1847.  L.  Helvig :  Danske 
Kirkeshistorie  after  Reformationen.  Copenhag.,  1851.  Dunham: 
Hist,  of  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway  (in  Lardner's  Cab.  Cycl., 
1840).  J.  Finnius:  Hist.  Eccles.  Islandia;,  1772-8.  4  vols.  4to. 
G.  L.  Baden:  Hist,  of  Denmark.  5  vols.  Copenhagen,  1829-32. 
Geijer:  History  of  Sweden,  translated  by  Turner.  8vo.  1845. 
Anders  Tryxell :  Hist,  of  Sweden,  translated  and  edited  by  Mary 
Howitt.  London,  1844.  A.  C.  Bang :  Den  Norske  Kirkes  Historie  i 
det  16  Aarhundrede,  Christiana,  1901.  F.  Barfod :  Danmarks  His- 
torie fra  131 9  til  1670.  Copenhagen,  1885-1893.  J.  Wiedling :  Schwe- 
dische  Geschichte  im  Zeitalter  der  Reformation,  Gotha,  1882.  C.  A. 
Cornelius:  Svenska  Kyrkans  Historia  efter  Reformationen,  Upsala, 
1886  seq. 

The  Reformation  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia 

A.  Gindely:  Bohmen  u.  Mahren  im  Zeitalt.  d.  Reformation  (2  vols.). 
Prague,  1637.  Gsch.  d.  bohmischen  Brilder.  Prague  (2  vols.). 
1857  seq.  Czerwenka  :  Gsch.  d.  evangel.  Kirche  in  Bohmen.  2 
vols.  8vo.  Leipzig,  1869-70.  Pescheck  :  Gsch.  d.  Gegenre- 
format.  in  Bohmen  (2  vols.),  2d  ed,  Leipzig,  1850.  The  Reforma- 
tion and  Anti-Reformation  in  Bohemia.  2  vols.  London,  1845.  Eh- 
walt :  Die  alte  u.  neue  Lehre  d.  bohm.  Brilder.  Dantzig,  1756.  K. 
A.  Mtiller :  Fiinf  Bilcher  vom  bohmisch.  Kriege.  Dresden,  1840. 
Tomek:  Geschichte  Bohmens.  Palacky:  Bohmens  Geschichte. 
Vols.  1-5.  1836-67.  8vo.  Palacky :  Geschichte  von  Bohmen 
(to  1526).  5  vols.  1836-67.  Niemeyer:  Collectio  Confessionum, 
pp.  771-851.  A.  Bachmann:  Geschichte  Bohmens,  Gotha,  1899. 
A  complete  edition  of  the  works  of  John  Huss  is  now  in  process  of 
publication  by  the  firm  of  Jaroslaw  Bursik  of  Prague.  The  first  in- 
stallment, containing  Huss's  Expositio  Decalogi,  appeared  in  1903. 

The  Reformation  in  Poland 

Regenvolscius  :  Syst.  hist.  Chron.  Eccl.  Slavonicarum.  Ultraj,  1652. 
4to.  Lubienicius:  Hist.  Ref.  Polon.  Freist.  1685.  Schicksale 
d.  pol.  Dissidentium  (3  vols.).  1768  seq.  Salig:  Historie  d.  Augsb. 
Confession,  ii.  515.  Friese :  Kirchengeschichte  d.  Konigreichs  Polen 
(2  Th.).  Breslau,  1786.  8vo.  Krasinski  :  History  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  Poland  (2  vols.).  8vo.  London,  1840;  by  the  same: 
Sketch  of  the  Religious  History  of  the  Slavonic  Nations.  Edinburgh, 
1851.  Dunham:  History  of  Poland  (in  Lardner's  Cab.  Cycl.).  1841. 
N.  A.  de  Salvandy :  Hist,  de  Pologne  avant  et  sous  J.  Sobieski.  2 
vols.  8vo.  Paris,  1855.  J.  Fletcher:  History  of  Poland,  London. 
1831.     J.  Lelevel:   Histoire  de  Pologne.     2  vols.     Paris,  1844.     8vo. 


488  THE  REFORMATION 

R.  Roepell;  Gsch.  von  Polen.  Hamburg,  1841.  Fasti  Polonici, 
1624  seq,,  Breslau,  1854.  Lubowitsch :  Istoria  Reformazii  v  Polschje, 
Warsaw,  1883.  Krause :  Die  Reformation  und  Gegenreformation  in 
Polen,  Posen,  1901.  See,  also,  Dalton:  Johann  a  Lasco,  Gotha,  1881. 
J.  H.  Allen :  A  History  of  the  Unitarians,  New  York,  1894,  Chapters 
III.,  IV. 

The  Reformation  in  Hungary  and  Transylvania 

Ribinus:  Memorab.  Aug.  Conf.  in  Hungaria.  2  vols.  Presb.,  1787. 
J.  Burius:  Hist.  Dipl.  de  Statu  Relig.  evang.  in  Hung.  1710.  Fol. 
Salig :  Gsch.  d.  Augsb.  Conf.,  ii.  803.  [P.  Ember]  :  Hist.  Eccl.  Ref. 
in  Hung,  et  Transyl.,  ed  Lampe,  Traj.  1728.  4to.  Peterffy :  Sacra 
Concil.  Eccl.  Romano-Cathol.  in  Regno  Hung,  celebrata,  mxvi.  usque 
ad.  a.  MDCCxxxiv.  2  vols.  Fol.  Vienna,  1742.  Schmal :  Monu- 
menta  Evangel.  Aug.  Confessionis  in  Hungaria  historica.  8vo.  Pesth. 
1861.  Memorab.  August.  Confessionis  in  Regno  Hung,  de  Ferdi- 
nando  I.  usque  ad  Carolum  VI.  2  vols.  1786-9.  8vo.  Kurze 
Gsch.  d.  evang.  luther.  Kirche  in  Ungarn  vom  Anfange  d.  Ref.  bis 
Leopold  II.  Gottingen,  1794.  8vo.  Die  wichtigsten  Schicksale 
d.  evang.  Kirche  Augsb.  Bekennt.  in  Ungarn  von  J.  1522  bis  1608. 
Leipzig,  1828.  Hist.  Eccl.  Evang.  Aug.  Confessioni  addictorum  in 
Hung.,  etc.  Halberstadt,  1830.  Mailath:  Gsch.  d.  Magjaren.  5 
vols.  8vo.  1820-30;  2d  ed.,  1852-55.  L.  Szalay:  Hist.  Hungar. 
(to  1690).  5  vols.  8vo.  Gsch.  d.  evang.  Kirche  in  Ungarn,  mit 
Rtlcksicht  auf  Siebenbtlrgen,  Berlin,  1854.  History  of  Protestant- 
ism in  Hungary,  with  Preface  by  Dr.  M.  d'Aubigne,  London,  1854. 
M.  Horvath:  Gsch.  Ungarns.  2  vols.  8vo.  Pesth,  1854.  J. 
Paget :  Hungary  and  Transylvania.  2  vols.  8vo.  London,  1839. 
J.  A.  Fessler:  Gsch.  d.  Ungarn.  10  vols.  8vo.  Leipzig,  1815-25. 
De  Sary :  Hist.  Generale  de  Hongrie.  2  vols.  12mo.  Paris,  1778. 
G.  Haner:  Hist.  Eccless.  Transylvan.,  1694.  12mo.  I.  Benko : 
Transylvania,  P.  I.,  Tom.  ii.  (Vindob.  1778.  8vo),  p.  121  (lib.  iv.  c.  12, 
De  Statu  Ecclesiastico).  E.  Csuday:  Die  Geschichte  der  Ungarn, 
Berlin,  1899.  J.  H.  Allen:  A  History  of  the  Unitarians,  New  York, 
1894,  Chapter  V. 

The  Reformation  in  France 

Documents  and  Contemporary  Works.     Hist.  Eccl.  des  Eglises  Ref.  au 

Royaume  de  France  (to  1563).     3  vols.     Antwerp,  1580.     8vo. 
Serrarius  (or  De  Serres) :  Comment,  de  Statu  Relig.  et  Respubl.  in  Regno 

Gallise  (5  parts),  1570  seq. 
F.  Belcarius  (Beaucaire  de  Peguillon,  Bishop  of  Metz) :    Historia  Gal- 

lica  (1561-67).     Lugd.,  1625.     Fol.     Thuanus:    Hist,  sui  Temporis, 

etc.     (See  above.) 
Theod.  Agrippa  d'Aubigne:  Histoire  Universelle  (1550-1601).     Maille, 

1616-20.     3  vols.     Fol.     Nouv.  ed.     Vol.   1-9,   Paris,   1866-97. 


APPENDIX  II  489 

He  was  born  in  1550,  and  died  in  1630.  The  son  of  a  devoted 
Huguenot,  he  fought  in  the  siege  of  Orleans,  when  he  was  only  thir- 
teen years  old.  He  was  for  a  while  an  intimate  associate  of  Henry 
IV.  After  writing  this  work,  he  resided  in  Geneva.  He  was  a  man 
of  high  character,  deeply  imbued  with  the  religious  feelings  peculiar 
to  the  Huguenots. 

Memoires  d'Agrippa  d'Aubigne.     1   vol.     12mo.     Paris,   1854. 

A.  L.  Herminjard  :  Correspondance  des  Reformateurs  dans  les  Pays 
de  la  Langue  Frangaise.     Vols.  1-9.     1866-97. 

Bulletin  de  la  Societe  pour  I'Histoire  du  Prot.  FranQais  (since  1850.  It 
includes  many  documents  illustrative  of  this  period.). 

Duplessis-Mornay  :  Memoires  et  Correspondance.     Paris,  1824-5. 

Petitot:  Memoires  relatifs  a  I'Histoire  de  France  (1st  series,  1819-26. 
52  vols.     8vo.     2d  series,   1820-29.     78  vols.     8vo.). 

Among  the  works  embraced  in  this  collection  are  the  Memoirs  of 
Bouillon,  vicomte  de  Turenne  (from  1555-1584) :  he  was  grandson 
of  the  Const.  Montmorenci;  was  converted  to  Calvinism,  and  was 
an  adherent  of  Henry  IV.  Gamon  (1560-86).  Mergey  (1556-89): 
he  was  born  in  1536;  he  was  at  St.  Quentin  (1557),  at  Dreux  (1562), 
and  at  Moncontour;  and  barely  escaped  the  massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew. PhiUppi  (1562-90).  Rabutin  (1551-59).  Saint  Auban 
(1572  seq.).  Tavannes  (1560-96):  he  was  born  in  1555;  fought 
for  the  League  at  Ivry;  then  served  Henry  IV.  He  died  in  1633. 
Villeroi  (1622-23).  Du  Bellay :  L'Estoile  (1589-1610).  Sully: 
Memoires.  6  vols.  8vo.  Paris,  1827.  Sully,  the  Prime  Minister 
of  Henry  IV.,  was  born  in  1559,  and  died  in  1641.  La  Noue  (1562- 
70) :  he  was  born  in  1531 ;  took  Orleans  in  1567 ;  fought  at  St.  Quen- 
tin, Jarnac,  and  Moncontour;  served  Henry  IV.  with  distinction. 
Montluc :  he  was  born  about  1502 ;  was  at  the  battle  of  Pavia  (1525) ; 
took  Boulogne  (1547) ;  defended  Sienna  (in  1554,  under  Henry  II.) ; 
took  part  in  the  siege  of  Rochelle  (1572).  He  was  noted  for  his  vigor 
and  cruelty.  Castelnau  (1559-70)  :  he  was  born  about  1520;  was  at 
the  siege  of  Rouen  and  at  Dreux ;  was  employed  by  Henry  II.,  Charles 
IX.,  and  Henry  III.  He  was  several  times  ambassador  in  England. 
He  accompanied  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  to  Scotland,  and  befriended 
her  afterwards.     Journal  de  Henri  III.  (1574-89). 

Collection  de  Documents  Inedits  sur  I'Histoire  de  France  [published 
by  order  of  Louis  PhiHppe].     Paris,  1835  seq. 

Recueil  des  Lettres  Missives  de  Henry  IV.  7  vols.  4to.  [In  the  above 
collection.]     Paris,  1843-58. 

Buchon :  Collection  des  Chroniques  et  Memoires  sur  I'Histoire  de  France, 
faisant  partie  de  la  Collection  du  Pantheon  Litteraire.     1824  seq. 

MiCHAUD :  Nouvelle  Collection  des  Memoires  pour  servir  a  I'Histoire 
de  France  depuis  le  XIIF  siecle  jusqu'a  la  fin  du  XVIIP.  3  Series. 
34  vols.     Paris,  1836  seq. 

Archives  Curieuses  de  I'Hist.  de  France  depuis  Louis  XL  jusqu'a  Louis 
XVIII.     27  vols.     8vo.     En  deux  series.     Paris,   1834-40. 

Bran  tome:   CEuvres  Completes.    7  vols.    8vo.     Paris,  1822. 


490  THE  REFORMATION 

Brantome  was  born  about  1527,  and  died  in  1614.  He  was  cham- 
berlain of  Charles  IX.  and  Henry  III.  He  is  a  gossiping  chroni- 
cler ;  but  his  works  present  a  vivid  portraiture  of  his  time.  Among 
them  are  the  "Vies  des  Hommes  Illustres,"  "Dames  Illustres  Fran- 
Qaises  et  Etrangeres,"  etc. 

N,  Weiss :  La  chambre  ardente,  Paris,  1889. 

Historical  Works.  General  Histories  of  France,  by  Anquetil;  by  Sis- 
mondi;  by  Michelet;  by  Henri  Martin;  by  Dareste;  by  La- 
visse;  by  Crowe,  5  vols.  London,  1858-68.  G.  W.  Kitchin:  A 
History  of  France,  3  vols.,  3d  ed.,  Oxford,  1892-94. 

Ranke  :  Franzosische  Geschichte  vornehmlich  im  16.  u.  17.  Jahrh.  6 
vols.  8vo.  1868.  Engl,  trans.  Hist,  of  Civil  Wars  and  Monarchy 
in  France.     8vo.     London,  1852. 

W.  Haag  :  La  France  Prot.  ou  Vies  des  Prot.  FranQais.  9  tom.  Svo. 
1847-59.     2d  ed.     Vols.  1-6,  1879-88. 

G.  Weber  :  Geschichtl.  Darstellung  d.  Calvinism,  im  Verhaltniss  z.  Staat 
in  Genf  u.  Frankreich.     Heidelb.,  1836,  8vo. 

Von  Raumer :  Gsch.  Europas  seit  dem  Ende  d.  15  Jahrh.     (See  above.) 

Capefigue :  Hist,  de  la  Reforme,  de  la  Ligue,  et  du  Regne  de  Henry  IV. 
8  tomes.     Paris,  1834-5.     8vo. 

Elie  Benoist :   Hist,  de  I'^fidit  de  Nantes.     5  vols.     4to.     Delft,  1693-5. 

Herrman:  Frankreich's  Religios-  u.  Btirgerkriege  im  16.  Jahrh.  Leipzig, 
1828.     Svo. 

H.  M.  Baird  :  Rise  of  the  Huguenots  in  France,  the  Huguenots  and 
Henry  of  Navarre;  The  Huguenots  and  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes,  6  vols.,  New  York,  1879-1895. 

De  Felice:  Hist.  d.  Protestants  de  France.  4th  ed.  1861.  Svo. 
Engl,  transl.  by  Lobdell,  1851.  Sold  an:  Gsch.  d.  Protest,  in  Frank- 
reich. 2  vols.  1855.  Svo.  Von  Polenz:  Gsch.  d.  franz.  Protes- 
tantismus.  5  vols.  1858  seq.  Svo.  W.  S.  Browning  :  History 
of  the  Huguenots  in  the  16th  century.  3  vols.  Svo.  1829-39. 
Smedley :  History  of  the  Reformed  Religion  in  France.  3  vols. 
12mo.  London,  1832.  (New  York,  1834.)  [Mrs.  Marsh:]  His- 
tory of  the  Huguenots.  2  vols.  1847.  Svo.  Ch.  Brion :  Liste 
chronolog.  de  I'Histoire  Protest,  en  France  jusqu'^  la  Revocat.  de 
I'Edit  de  Nantes.  2  vols.  12mo.  1855.  Anquez :  Hist.  d.  Assem- 
blees  Polit.  des  Reformees  de  France  (1573  to  1622).  Svo.  Paris, 
1859.  Aymon :  Tous  les  Synodes  nationaux  des  Eglises  reformes, 
etc.  La  Haye,  1710.  2  vols.  4to.  Quick:  Synodicon  in  Gallia 
reformata,  etc.  1682.  2  vols.  Fol.  W.  Anderson :  Hist,  of  France 
during  the  Reigns  of  Francis  II.  and  Charles  IX.  2  vols.  London, 
1769.  Lacretelle :  Hist,  de  France  pendant  les  Guerres  de  Religion. 
4  vols.  Svo.  1822.  Morley:  Clement  Marot  and  other  studies. 
2  vols.  Svo.  1870.  Due  d'Aumale  :  Lives  of  the  Princes  of  Cond6. 
Vols.  1,  2.  Svo.  London,  1872.  H.  White:  Massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew, preceded  by  a  narrative  of  the  religious  wars.  London, 
1868.  Klipffel :  Le  Colloque  de  Poissy.  12mo.  Brussels  and 
Paris,    1867.     Villemain :    Vie  de  Chancellor  d'Hopital   (in  !^tudes 


APPENDIX  II  491 

d'Histoire  Moderne.  1  vol.  8vo.  1854).  Voltaire  :  Siecle  de  Louis 
XIV.  (CEuvres,  t.  xxii.)  Capefigue:  Trois  Siecles  de  THist.  de 
France,  1548-1848.  2  vols.  1852.  8vo.  C.  Schmidt:  Gerard 
Roussel.  1845.  8vo.  Puaux :  Hist,  de  la  Reforme  Franqaise.  2 
torn.  Paris,  1857-9.  V.  de  Chalembert,  Hist,  de  la  Ligue,  Henri  III. 
et  IV.  2  vols.  1854.  8vo.  Aug.  Theiner  Hist,  de  TAbjuration  de 
Henri  IV.  2  vols.  1852.  8vo.  C.  Schmidt:  La  Vie  et  les  Tra- 
vaux  de  Jean  Sturm.  1855.  8vo.  F.  W.  Ebeling:  Sieben  Bilcher 
d.  franz.  Gsch.  Bd.  i.  1855.  Anquetil  L'Esprit  de  la  Ligue.  2  vols. 
8vo.     Paris,   1818.     Davila:    Storia  delle  Guerre  Civili  di  Francia. 

6  vols,  in  7.  London,  1801.  Engl,  transl.  by  Farneworth.  2  vols. 
4to.  London,  1801.  Duncan  (J.) :  Religious  Wars  in  France,  from 
the  Accession  of  Henry  II.  to  the  Peace  of  Vervins.  12mo.  Lon- 
don, 1840.  Schiller  (J.  C.  F.  von) :  Gsch.  d.  Unruben  in  Frankreich 
welche  d.  Regierung  Heinrich  IV.  vorangingen.  8vo.  Stuttgart, 
1844.  S.  Scott :  Life  of  T.  A.  d'Aubigne :  an  Account  of  the  Civil 
Wars,  etc.  8vo.  London,  1772.  Voltaire:  Essai  sur  les  Guerres 
Civiles  de  France.  8vo.  Paris,  1785.  Pardoe  (J.) :  The  Court 
and  Reign  of  Francis  I.  2  vols.  12mo.  Phil.,  1847.  Freer  (M. 
W.) :  Court  and  Times  of  Henry  III.  3  vols.  12mo.  London, 
1858.  Bassompierre :  Mem.  de  la  Cour  de  France.  2  vols,  in  1. 
16mo.  Cologne,  1666.  Freer:  History  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  IV. 
2  vols.  12mo.  London,  1860-63.  G.  P.  R.  James :  Life  of  Henry 
IV.  3  vols.  8vo.  London,  1847.  Maimbourg:  Hist,  de  la  Ligue. 
4to.  Paris,  1657.  Weiss :  Hist,  des  Refug.  Prot.  de  France  [after 
the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes].  2  vols.  Paris.  1853. 
Coquerel :  Les  Eglises  du  Desert  chez  les  Prot.  de  France  [after  Louis 
XIV.].  2  vols.  8vo.  1841.  Muret:  Hist,  de  Jeanne  d'Albret. 
Paris,  1861.  Sir  James  Stephen:  Lectures  on  the  Hist,  of  France. 
3d  ed.     2  vols.  8vo.     1857.     Laval :    Hist,  of  the  Ref .  in  France. 

7  vols.  8vo.  1737  seq.  Laurent  :  Guerres  de  Religion.  Genin : 
Lettres  de  Marguerite  d'Angouleme  (1841) ;  also,  Nouvelles  Lettres 
de  la  Reine  de  Navarre  (1842).  Stahelin:  Der  Uebertritt  Konig 
Heinrichs  d.  vierten.  8vo.  Basel,  1862.  Wraxall :  Memoirs  of  the 
Kings  of  the  Race  of  Valois.  2  vols.  8vo.  1807 ;  Hist,  of  France  from 
the  Accession  of  Henry  III.  to  the  Death  of  Louis  XIV.  2d  ed.  1814. 
6  vols.  8vo.  Reuchlin :  Geschichte  von  Port  Royal.  2  Bd.  1839  seq. 
Sainte-Beuve :  Port  Royal,  5  vols.  2d  ed.  8vo.  1860.  Le  Saint- 
Barth^lemy  devant  le  Senat  de  Venise :  relations  des  ambassadeurs. 
G.  Michiel  et  S.  Cavalli.  Trad,  et  annot.  par  W.  Martin.  18mo. 
1872.  E.  Armstrong  :  The  French  Wars  of  Religion,  London,  1892. 
H.  Hauser :  La  propagation  de  la  Reforme  en  France,  Paris,  1894. 

Lives  of  French  Leaders.  E.  Marcks :  Gaspard  de  Coligny,  Stuttgart, 
1892.  A.  de  Ruble :  Antoine  de  Bourbon  et  Jeanne  d'Albret,  Paris, 
1881-82.  F.  Buisson:  Sebastien  CasteUion,  Paris,  1892.  C.  T. 
Atkinson  :  Michel  de  I'Hopital,  London,  1900.  J.  B.  Perkins  : 
Richelieu,  New  York,  1900.  R.  Lodge :  Richelieu,  London,  1896. 
E.  Sichel:  Catherine  de  Medici,  New  York,  1905. 


492  THE  REFORMATION 


The  Reformation  in  the  Netherlands 

Gachard:  Correspondance  de  Guillaume  le  Taciturne,  Prince  d'Or- 
ange,  publiee  pour  la  premiere  fois,  etc.  6  vols.  8vo.  1847-58. 
Also,  by  the  same,  Correspondance  de  Philippe  II.,  sur  les  Affaires 
des  Pays-Bas  [from  the  Archives  of  Simancas].    4  vols.    4to.    1848-59. 

Groen  van  Prinsterer:  Archives  ou  Correspondance  inedite  de  al 
Maison  d 'Orange-Nassau  [1552-1584].  10  vols.  8vo.  1857-61. 
Le  meme:   2^  seire  [1584-1688].     6  vols.     8vo.     1857-61. 

Granvelle  :  Papiers  d'^ltat,  d'apres  les  Manuscrits  de  la  Bibliotheque 
de  Besanqon.  9  vols.  4to.  1841-61.  In  the  Collection  des  Docu- 
ments In^dits  sur  I'Histoire  de  France.     Paris,  1835  seq. 

Poullet  and  Plot :  Correspondance  du  Cardinal  Granvelle,  Brussels,  1878- 
97.  Kervyn  de  Lettenhove :  Relations  politiques  des  Pays-Bas  et  de 
I'Angleterre  sous  la  regne  de  Philippe  II.,  5  vols.,  Brussels,  1882-86. 

Documentos  escorgidos  del  Archivio  de  la  Casa  de  Alba,  Madrid,  1891. 

M.  Nijhoff:  BibUoteca  Historico-Nederlandica  (bibliographical),  The 
Hague,  1898-99. 

Brandt:  Hist,  der  Reformatie  in  en  omtrent  de  Nederlanden.  Amst., 
1693  seq.  4  vols.  4to.  Engl,  transl.,  London,  1720.  4  vols. 
Grotius :  Annales  et  Hist,  de  Rebus  Belgicis,  1556-1609.  Gerdesius : 
Hist.  Ref.,  etc.  (See  above.)  Ypey  en  Dermout :  Geschiedenissen 
der  Nederland.  hervormde  Kerk.  Breda,  1819-27.  4  vols.  8vo. 
Van  Meteren:  Hist,  der  Nederlanden,  1369-1612.  Ter  Har:  Die 
Ref.  Gsch.  in  Schilderungen.  8vo.  A.  Kokler:  Die  niederl.  ref. 
Kirche.  Erlangen,  1856.  8vo.  G.  Bentivoglio:  Delia  Guerra  di 
Fiandra  [1559-1607].  Milano,  1806.  Engl,  transl.  4to.  London, 
1678.  Strada:  De  Bello  Belgico.  2  vols.  Fol.  1640-47.  Engl, 
transl.  by  Stapylton:  Fol.  London,  1650.  Schiller:  Abfall  der 
Niederlande.  8vo.  Stuttgart,  1844.  Eng.  transl.,  by  Morison.  2 
vols.  12mo.  London,  1851.  VanKampen:  Geschichte  der  Nieder- 
lande, 2  vols.     8vo.     1831-33.     Motley  :  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 

3  vols.     8vo.     New  York,  1856.     History  of  the  United  Netherlands. 

4  vols.  8vo.  New  York,  1861.  Holzwarth  :  Der  Abfall  der 
Niederlande,  3  vols.  8vo.  1866-72.  Prescott:  History  of  Philip 
II.  3  vols.  8vo.  1855.  Th.  Juste  :  Hist,  de  la  Revol.  des  Pays- 
Bas.  sous  Phil.  II.  (1555-72).  2  vols.  8vo.  1855;  Hist,  du  sou- 
lavement  des  Pays-Bas  contre  la  domination  espagnole  (1572-76). 
2  vols.  8vo.  1862-63 ;  Les  Pays-Bas  sous  Charles  Quint  —  Vie  de 
Marie  de  Hongrie  (1505-58).  8vo.  1855.  Basnage :  Annales  des 
Provinces-Unis  (1719).  H.  Leo:  Zwolf  Bticher  der  neiderland 
Geschichte.  2  vols.  1832-45.  Koch:  Untersuchungen  liber  die 
Emporung  u.  den  Abfall  d.  Niederlande  von  Spanien.     1  vol.     8vo. 

P.  J.  Blok  :  Geschiedenis  van  het  Nederlandsche  Volk.  3  vols.  Gronin- 
gen,  1892-96;  English  translation,  New  York,  1898-1900. 

J.  ten  Brink:  De  eerste  jaren  der  Nederlandsche  Revolutie,  Rotterdam, 
1882.  J.  Reitsma :  Geschidenis  van  de  Hervorming  en  de  hervorm 
de  Kerk  d.  Nederlanden,  Groningen,  1893. 


APPENDIX  II  493 

E.  Marx:  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  niederlandischen  Aufstandes. 
Leipzig,  1902. 

P.  J.  Blok :  Lodewijk  van  Nassau.     The  Hague,  1889. 

F.  Harrison :  William  the  Silent.     London,  1897. 

R.  Putnam :  William  the  Silent.     2  vols.     New  York,  1898. 

M.  A.  S.  Hume :  Phihp  II.  of  Spain.     London,  1902. 

The  Bibliothica  Reformationa  Nierlandica,  edited  by  Profs.  Cranmer 
and  Pyper,  is  being  issued  by  Martinus  Nijhoff  of  the  Hague.  Vol  I., 
containing  Schriften  aus  der  Zeit  der  Reformation  in  den  Niederlanden, 
appeared  in  1903 ;  and  vol.  ii.,  reproducing  the  Offer  des  Heeren  of 
1570,  a  collection  of  Letters  and  Songs  of  Mennonite  Martyrs,  was  pub- 
Ushed  in  1904. 

The  Reformation  in  England 

Documents  and  Contemporary  Sources.  Works  of  the  Reformers, 
published  by  the  Parker  Society,  Cambridge,  1841-54  (54  vols.,  with 
a  general  index) ,  comprising  the  writings  of  Ridley,  Sandys,  Pilking- 
ton,  R.  Hutchinson,  Philpot,  Grindal,  T.  Becon,  Fulke,  Hooper,  Cran- 
mer, Coverdale,  Latimer,  Jewel,  Bradford,  Whitgift;  together  with 
the  Zurich  Letters  (1st  and  2d  series),  Original  Letters  (2  vols.).  The 
Correspondence  of  M.  Parker,  etc. 

The  State  Calendars,  now  being  pubUshed,  under  the  direction  of  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls. 

Rymer :  Foedera,  Conventiones,  Literse,  etc.,  inter  Reges  Angliae  et  al. 
Reges,  Pontifices,  etc.     3d  ed.     10  vols.     Fol.     1739-45. 

Rushworth:  Historical  Collections  (1618-1648).  8  vols.  Fol.  Lon- 
don, 1721. 

Fox:  Acts  and  Monuments  of  the  Church,  or  Book  of  Martyrs,  1563. 
Fol.     1684.     3  vols.     Fol.     1837-41.     8  vols.     8vo. 

Ellis :  Letters  illustrative  of  EngUsh  History.  1st  series.  3  vols.  8vo. 
1824;   2d  series.     4  vols.     8vo.     1827.     3d  series.     4  vols. 

Wilkins:  Concilia  Magnse  Brittaniae  et  Hibernise  (446-1717).  4  vols. 
Fol.     1736-7. 

E.  Cardwell :  Documentary  Annals  of  the  Church  of  England  (1546- 
1716).  2  vols.  8vo.  Oxford,  1844.  By  the  same:  Synodalia. 
1547-1717  (relating  to  the  province  of  Canterbury).  2  vols.  8vo. 
Oxford,  1842.  By  the  same :  The  Reformation  of  the  Laws  as  at- 
tempted in  the  reigns  of  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI.,  and  Elizabeth. 
New  ed.     Oxford,  1850. 

Formularies  of  Faith  put  forth  under  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  Oxford, 
1856.     8vo. 

W.  Maskell :  Monumenta  Ritualia  Eccl.  Anglicanae.  3  vols.  8vo. 
1846-7. 

Holinshed :  Chronicle  of  Englande,  Scotlande,  and  Ireland,  1577.  2 
vols.     Fol.     1807-8.     6  vols.     4to. 

Gee  and  Hardy  :  Documents  illustrative  of  English  Church  History, 
London,  1896. 


494  THE   REFORMATION 

G.  W.  Prothero  :  Select  Statutes  and  Other  Constitutional  Documents 
illustrative  of  the  Reigns  of  Ehzabeth  and  James  I.  2d  ed.,  Oxford, 
1898. 

S.  R.  Gardiner  :  Constitutional  Documents  of  the  Puritan  Revolution. 
2d  ed.,  Oxford,  1899. 

W.  Stubbs  :  Collation  of  the  Journals  of  the  Lords,  with  the  Records  of 
Convocation,  1529  to  1547 ;  and  The  High  Commission  Court  (Appen- 
dices I.  and  IV.,  to  the  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Ecclesias- 
tical Courts,  in  Vol.  XXIV.  of  Parliamentary  Reports  for  1883). 

S.  Ehses :  Romische  Dokumente  zur  Geschichte  der  Ehesheidung  Heinrich 
VIII.     Paderborn,  1893. 

General  Histories.  By  Ranke  :  Engl.  Geschichte  vornehmlich  im  sieb- 
zehnten  Jahrh.  9  vols.  8vo.  Leipzig,  1870.  By  Carte  (to  1654), 
1747  seq. ;  by  Kennet  (to  the  death  of  William  III.),  3  vols.,  fol. 
1719;  by  Macaulay  (from  the  accession  of  James  I.,  with  a  hist. 
Introduct.  5  vols.  8vo.  1849  seq.).  Macaulay 's  introductory 
chapter  includes  a  brief  account  of  the  rise  and  character  of  Prot- 
estantism in  Great  Britain.  His  Reviews  of  Ranke  and  of  Hallam 
(in  his  collected  Essays)  relate  in  part  to  the  Reformation.  By 
Mackintosh  (to  the  14th  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign;  continued  by 
W.  Wallace,  and  then  by  R.  Bell);  10  vols.  12mo.  1838.  By 
Hume.  Hume's  negligence  in  examining  and  reporting  authorities, 
his  inaccuracy,  his  partiality  for  the  Stuarts,  and  his  frigid  tone 
with  regard  to  questions  of  morals  and  religion,  are  now  conceded; 
as  are,  also,  the  excellence  of  his  style,  and  his  sagacity  as  an  econo- 
mist. By  Lingard  (Roman  Catholic).  Lingard  is  an  able  and 
well-informed  writer,  but  with  strong  Anti-Protestant  prejudices. 
By  Knight,  8  vols.,  8vo,  1868;  by  T.  Keightley,  3  vols.,  8vo,  1839; 
by  J.  Miller  (to  1688),  4th  ed.,  4to,  London,  1818;  by  Turner  (to 
the  death  of  Elizabeth),  12  vols.,  8vo,  1839;  by  Froude  (from  the 
Fall  of  Wolsey  to  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada),  12  vols.,  8vo, 
New  York,  1865  seq. ;  by  F.  L.  G.  Raumer :  Political  History  of  Eng- 
land during  the  16th,  17th,  and  18th  centuries,  2  vols.,  8vo,  London, 
1836 ;  by  Oldmixon :  History  of  England  during  the  Reign  of  the 
Stuarts,  2  vols.,  fol.,  London,  1730;  by  Vaughan;  History  of  Eng- 
land under  the  House  of  Stuart  (1603-1688),  2  vols.,  8vo,  London, 
1840;  by  the  same:  Memorials  of  the  Stuart  Dynasty,  2  vols.,  8vo, 
London,  1831 ;  by  Clarendon  :  Hist,  of  the  Great  Rebellion  (1641-60), 
3  vols.,  fol.,  Oxford,  1702-4.  By  F.  S.  Thomas:  Historical  Notes 
relative  to  the  History  of  England,  from  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII. 
to  the  death  of  Anne  (1509-1714),  designed  as  a  book  of  instant  ref- 
erence to  dates.  3  vols.  8vo.  1858.  Camden :  Annales  Rerum 
Anglic,  et  Hibernic.  regnante  Elizabetha  (to  1589)  1615  seq.  1717. 
3  vols.  8vo.  Oxford.  Life  of  Col.  Hutchinson,  by  his  wife,  ed. 
by  Firth.  1885.  2  vols.  Pepys:  Diary  and  Correspondence. 
Evelyn:  Diary  (from  1641-1705-6),  4  vols.  8vo.  1854.  Ed. 
Bray;  new  ed.  with  life  by  Wheatley.  4  vols.  1879.  Harris: 
Lives  of  James  I.,  Charles  I.,  Cromwell,  Charles  II.    5  vols.    8vo. 


APPENDIX  11  495 

1814.  Godwin,  History  of  the  Commonwealth.  4  vols.  8vo.  1824- 
28.  R.  Vaughan:  the  Protectorate  of  Cromwell.  2  vols.  8vo. 
1839.  Buckle :  Hist,  of  Civilization  in  England,  new  ed.  3  vols. 
8vo.  1867.  Strickland:  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  England.  8  vols. 
Svo.  1850-54;  new  ed.  12mo,  1865.  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  Scot- 
land, 8  vols.     8vo.     1850-59. 

Hallam  :  Const.  History  of  England.  3  vols.  8vo.  1867.  This  is 
the  most  successful  of  Hallam's  historical  writings.  It  is  thorough 
and  impartial  in  its  treatment  of  religious  parties  and  persons,  and 
specially  instructive  on  the  legal  and  constitutional  questions  in- 
volved in  the  history  of  the  Reformation. 

J.  S.  Brewer  :  The  Reign  of  Henry  VIII.     2  vols.,  London,  1884. 

A,  F.  Pollard :  Henry  VIII.     London,  1902. 

A.  F.  Pollard :  England  under  Protector  Somerset.     London,  1900. 

R.  B.  Merriman :  Life  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Cromwell.  2  vols.,  Oxford, 
1902. 

M.  Creighton  :  Cardinal  Wolsey.     London,  1888. 

J.  M.  Stone :  History  of  Mary  I.,  Queen  of  England.     London,  1901. 

E.  S.  Beesley:  Queen  Elizabeth.     London,  1892. 

M.  Creighton :  Queen  Elizabeth.     London,  1896. 

M.  A.  S.  Hume :  The  Great  Lord  Burghley,  London,  1898, 

S.  R.  Gardiner  :  History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  I.  to 
the  Outbreak  of  the  Civil  War.  10  vols.,  London,  1887.  History  of 
the  Great  Civil  War.     3  vols.,  London,  1886-91,  etc. 

Carlyle  :  Oliver  Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches :  with  elucidations 
by  T.  Carlyle.  2  vols.  New  York,  1845.  With  notes,  supplement, 
etc.  3  vols.  London,  1904.  2  vols.  8vo.  New  York,  1845. 
This  contributed  more  than  any  other  work  to  raise  the  reputa- 
tion of  Cromwell  in  recent  times,  and  to  vindicate  him  against  the 
imputation  of  insincerity. 

C.  H.  Frith :  Oliver  Cromwell  and  the  Rule  of  the  Puritans  in  England. 
New  York,  1900. 

J.  Morley :  Oliver  Cromwell.     New  York,  1900. 

H.  A.  Glass :  The  Barebone  Parliament.     London,  1899. 

Histories  of  the  English  Reformation.  Burnet:  The  History  of  the 
Reformation  of  the  Church  of  England.  London,  1679  seq.  7  vols., 
1829.     8vo.     Ed.  by  Pocock.     7  vols.,  1865. 

Burnet  is  an  honest  writer,  with  extraordinary  means  of  knowl- 
edge, but  sometimes  swayed  by  prejudice.  "It  is  usual,"  says  Ma- 
caulay  (Hist,  of  Engl.,  i.  163),  "to  censure  Burnet  as  a  singularly 
inaccurate  historian,  but  I  believe  the  charge  to  be  altogether  unjust. 
He  appears  to  be  singularly  inaccurate  only  because  his  narrative 
has  been  subjected  to  a  scrutiny  singularly  severe  and  unfriendly." 

Strype  :  Ecclesiastical  Memorials  relating  chiefly  to  Religion  and  the 
Reformation  of  it,  and  the  Emergencies  of  the  Church  of  England 
under  King  Henry  VIII.,  King  Edward  VI, ,  and  Queen  Mary,  3 
vols.  London,  2d  ed.,  1745-37.  Brief  Armals  of  the  Church  and 
State,  under  the  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.     London,  2d  ed.,  1738. 


496  THE  REFORMATION 

Fol.    The    Complete    Works    of    Strype.     27    vols.     8vo.    Oxford, 
1821-40. 

Strype  is  the  authority  most  frequently  consulted  and  quoted  in 
works  on  the  English  Reformation.  He  is  a  veracious  writer;  his 
own  statements  are  instructive  and  valuable,  and  the  documents 
which  he  publishes  are  still  more  so.  Occasional  inaccuracies  in 
copying  citations,  arising  from  a  want  of  care,  do  not  essentially 
detract  from  his  merit.  On  these  inaccuracies,  pointed  out  by  Mait- 
land,  see  the  London  AthentEum,  1858,  i.  404. 
J.  Collier  (a  non-juring  Bishop) :  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Great 
Britain,  to  the  death  of  Charles  II.  2  vols.  Fol.  London,  1708-14. 
9  vols.  8vo.  1846.  Dodd  (Roman  Catholic),  in  his  Church  His- 
tory of  England  (1500-1688).  3  vols.  Fol.  1737  seq. :  new  ed., 
1839  seq.  Dodd's  work  was  designed  as  an  antidote  to  Burnet. 
H.  Soames:  History  of  the  Reformation  of  the  Church  of  England. 
4  vols.  8vo.  1826-27 ;  by  the  same :  Elizabethan  Church  History, 
London,  1848,  8vo.  By  J.  V.  Short :  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Church 
of  England  to  the  Revolution  of  1688.  2  vols.  8vo.  1832:  8th 
ed.,  1870.  By  F.  C.  Massingberd:  History  of  the  English  Refor- 
mation, 4th  ed.,  1867,  8vo.  J.  H.  Blunt  :  History  of  the  Reforma- 
tion to  the  death  of  Wolsey  (1514-47).  8vo.  London.  1872.  I. 
J.  Blunt:  Sketch  of  the  Reformation  in  England.  26th  ed.  1869. 
J.  A.  Baxter:  Church  History  of  England.  2d  ed.  London,  1849. 
8vo.  By  Peter  Heylin:  History  of  the  Reformation  of  the  Church 
of  England.  Fol.  1661  seq.  Carwithen :  History  of  the  Church  of 
England.  2  vols.  2d  ed.  Oxford,  1849.  8vo.  Neal  :  History  of 
the  Puritans  from  the  Reformation  to  the  death  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
1732  seq.  4  vols.  8vo;  Toulmin's  ed.,  1793  seq.,  5  vols.,  8vo; 
Choules's  Am.  ed.,  2  vols.,  8vo,  New  York,  1844.  J.  B.  Marsden: 
History  of  Earlier  and  Later  Puritans.  2  vols.  8vo.  London, 
1852.  S.  Hopkins:  The  Puritans.  3  vols.  Boston,  1859-60.  S. 
R.  Maitland :  Essays  on  Subjects  connected  with  the  British  Refor- 
mation. 1849.  8vo.  Fuller:  Church  History  of  Britain  from 
the  Time  of  Christ  to  1648.  Fol.  1655.  6  vols.  8vo.  London, 
1845.  Lathbury :  History  of  the  Nonjurors.  8vo.  1845.  T.  Lath- 
bury  :  History  of  English  Episcopacy,  from  the  Long  Parliament  to 
the  Act  of  Uniformity.  8vo.  London,  1836.  Brennan :  Ecclesi- 
astica.  History  of  Ireland  to  1829.  2  vols.  8vo.  Dublin,  1848. 
R.  Mant  :  History  of  the  Church  of  Ireland  from  the  Reformation  to 
the  Revolution.  2  vols.  8vo.  London,  1841.  Rees:  History  of 
Protestant  Nonconformity  in  Wales.  8vo.  1861.  Hardwick: 
History  of  Articles  of  Religion.  New  ed.  1859.  8vo.  T.  Lath- 
bury  :  History  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  2d  ed.  1858.  W. 
Keeling:  Liturgiae  Brittanicae.  8vo.  2d  ed.  1851.  W.  Palmer: 
Origines  Liturgicse.  4th  ed.  2  vols.  8vo.  1845.  Tulloch: 
English  Puritanism  and  its  Leaders:  Cromwell,  Milton,  Baxter, 
Bunyan.  8vo.  London,  1861.  Fletcher:  History  of  the  Independ- 
ents.    4  vols.     12mo.     1862.     Hook:    Lives   of   the   Archbishops   of 


APPENDIX   II  497 

Canterbury.  New  series.  3  vols.  (Vol.  8.  Ref.  period.  1869. 
8vo.)  Stoughton  :  Ecclesiastical  History  of  England  [Civil  Wars, 
Commonwealth,  Restoration].  4  vols.  8vo.  1867-70.  Hanbury: 
Ecclesiastical  Memorials  relative  to  the  Independents.  3  vols.  8vo. 
London,  1839.  J.  Waddington :  Congregational  Church  History 
from  the  Reformation  to  1662.  London,  1862.  Hunt:  History 
of  Religious  Thought  in  England.  8vo.  Vol.  i.,  1870.  Vol.  ii., 
1871.  J.  Waterworth:  Historical  Lectures  on  the  Reformation  in 
England. 

F.  Makower  :  Constitutional  History  and  Constitution  of  the  Church  of 
England,  translated  from  the  German.     London,  1905. 

Proctor  and  Frere  :  A  new  History  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 
London,  1901. 

R.  W.  Dixon :  History  of  the  Church  of  England.     2d  ed.,  London,  1893. 

J.  H.  Blunt :  The  Reformation  of  the  Church  of  England.    London,  1896. 

J.  Gairdner:  The  English  Church  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  London, 
1902. 

W.  H.  Frere:  The  English  Church  in  the  Reigns  of  EHzabeth  and 
James  I.     London,  1904. 

W.  H.  Hutton:  The  English  Church  from  the  Accession  of  Charles  I. 
to  the  death  of  Anne.     London,  1903. 

F.  A.  Gasquet :  Henry  VIII.  and  the  English  Monasteries.  London,  1888. 
The  Eve  of  the  Reformation.  London,  1900.  Edward  VI.  and  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer.     London,  1890. 

H.  Gee  :  The  Elizabethan  Clergy.     Oxford,  1898. 

E.  L.  Taunton :  The  History  of  the  Jesuits  in  England,  1580-1773. 

W.  A.  Shaw  :  A  History  of  the  English  Church  during  the  Civil  Wars 
and  under  the  Commonwealth.     London,  1900. 

J.  H.  Overton :  Life  in  the  EngUsh  Church,  1660-1714.     London,  1885. 

H.  M.  Dexter  :  The  Congregationalism  of  the  Last  300  Years  as  seen  in 
its  Literature.     New  York,  1880. 

E.  Arber :  The  Story  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.     London,  1897. 

M.  Dexter:  The  England  and  Holland  of  the  Pilgrims.     Boston,  1905. 

Biographies.  Strype  :  Lives  of  Cranmer,  Parker,  Grindal,  Whitgift, 
Aylmer,  Cheke,  and  Smith.  W.  Gilpin:  Life  of  Cranmer.  1784. 
8vo.  Lives  of  the  Reformers.  1809.  2  vols.  8vo.  Todd:  Life 
of  Cranmer,  1831.  Le  Bas:  Life  of  Jewel.  8vo.  1835.  Life  of 
Laud.  8vo.  1836.  C.  Wordsworth:  Eccl.  Biography,  or  Lives 
of  Eminent  Men  in  England,  from  the  Commencement  of  the  Ref. 
to  the  Revolution.  4th  ed.  4  vols.  8vo.  1853.  B.  F.  Tytler. 
Life  of  Henry  VIII.  12mo.  New  ed.  1851.  Lord  Herbert.  Life 
and  Reign  of  Henry  VIII.  Fol.  1649  seq.  1770.  4to.  Fiddes. 
Life  of  Wolsey,  4  vols.  8vo.  1742.  F.  Seebohm :  The  Oxford  Re- 
formers.    3d  ed.,  London,  1896. 

A.  F.  Pollard  :  Thomas  Cranmer.  New  York,  1904.  T.  E.  Bridgett : 
Life  and  Writings  of  Thomas  More.  London,  1891.  W.  H.  Hutton: 
Sir  Thomas  More.  London,  1895.  F.  G.  Lee  :  Reginald  Pole.  London, 
1888.     W.  H.  Hutton :  William  Laud.     London,  1895.     P.  Lorimer : 


498  THE  REFORMATION 

John  Knox  and  the  Church  of  England.    London,  1875.    F.  J.  Powicke : 
Henry  Barrow,  Separatist.     London,  1900. 

The  Reformation  in  Scotland.    Contemporary  Sources 

WoDRow   Society's   Publications.     24   vols.     8vo.    Comprising   Cal- 

derwood's  Hist,  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  8  vols. ;   Autobiography  of 

Robert    Blair    (from    1593-1636) ;     Scott's    Apologetical    Narration 

(from  1560-1633) ;    Twedie's  Select  Biographies,  2  vols,  and  other 

works. 
Spottiswoode    Society    Publications.     16    vols.    8vo.    Comprising 

Keith's  History  of  the  Affairs  of  Church  and  State  in  Scotland  from 

the  Beginning  of  the  Ref.  to   1568;    The  Spottiswoode  Miscellany 

(2  vols.),  etc. 
John  Knox  :  Historie  of  the  Reformation  of  Religioun  within  the  Realme 

of  Scotland,  in  V  Books;   with  his  life  by  David  Buchanan.     Edinb. 

1584.     Ed.  by  David  Laing  (with  other  writings  of  Knox),  1846  seq. 

4  vols.     8vo. 
Bannatyne  [Secretary  of  Knox]:   Journal  of  Transactions,  etc.     1570- 

73.     Edinb.  1806. 
Spottiswoode :    History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland.    8vo.    3  vols,  (by 

the  Wodrow  Soc). 
Labanoff:    Lettres,  Instructions,  et  Memoires  de  Marie  Stuart,  etc.    7 

vols.     8vo.     London,  1844. 
A.  Teulet :  Lettres  de  Marie  Stuart,  publiees  avec  sommaires,  etc.    8vo. 

1859. 
A.  Teulet :  Relations  Politiques  de  la  France  et  de  I'Espagne  avec  I'Ecosse 

en  16"  Siecle.     Papiers  d'Etat,  etc.     5  vols.     Paris,  1862. 
G.  Buchanan:  Rerum  Scotic.  Hist.      Edinb.,  1582.     Fol.      In  EngUsh, 

1690.     Fol. 
R.  Baillie:    Letters  and  Journals  [on  the  period  from  1637-1662],  new 

ed.  3  vols.     8vo.     Edinb.,  1841-2. 
Sir  James  Balfour:    Annales  (1057-1640),  and  Memorials  and  Passages 

of  Church  and  State  (1641-1652).     4  vols.     Edinb.,  1824. 
J.  Lesly  (Bp.  of  Ross) :  A  Defence  of  the  Honor  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scot- 
land.    London,   1569.     8vo.     1570.     8vo. 
G.  Buchanan :  A  Detection  of  the  Doings  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  etc. 

Circa,  1572. 
Register  of  the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland.     Edinburgh,  1877. 
State  Papers,  Scotland  and  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  Calendar.     Edinburgh, 

1898,  1903. 
Accounts  and  Papers  relating  to  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  Camden  Society. 

London,  1867. 
J.  Pollen  :  Despatches  of  Papal  Envoys  to  Queen  Mary.    Edinburgh,  1900. 
W.  Forbes- Leith :  Narratives  of  Scottish  Catholics  under  Mary  Stuart. 

Edinburgh,  1885. 
J.   Scott :    Bibliography  of  Works  relating  to   Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 

Edinburgh,  1896. 


APPENDIX  II  499 

Later  Works.  W.  Robertson:  History  of  Scotland  during  the  reigns 
of  Mary  and  James  VI.,  etc.  (in  numerous  editions).  G.  Stuart :  Hist, 
of  the  Estabhshment  of  the  Ref.  of  Rel.  in  Scotland  (1517-1561). 
4to.  London,  1780.  Hist,  of  Scotland  from  the  Establ.  of  the  Ref. 
to  the  Death  of  Mary.  2  vols.  4to.  London,  1782.  W.  M.  Hether- 
ington:  Hist,  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  (new  ed.).     2  vols.     8vo. 

1853.  T.  McCrie  :  Life  of  Andrew  Melville.  2  vols.  8vo.  1819. 
2d  ed.  London.  1847.  8vo.  T.  McCrie,  Jr. :  Sketches  of  Scot- 
tish Church  History.  2d  ed.  1843.  8vo,  A.  Stevenson :  History 
of  the  Ch.  and  State  of  Scotland  from  the  Accession  of  Charles  I. 
to  the  Restoration.  1844.  8vo.  J.  Cunningham :  Ch.  Hist,  of  Scot- 
land to  the  Present  Time.  2  vols.  8vo.  1859.  Lee  :  Lectures 
on  the  Hist,  of  the  Ch.  of  Scotland.  2  vols.  8vo.  Edinb.,  1860. 
J.  Scott:  Lives  of  the  Reformers  in  Scotland.  Edinb.,  1810.  Von 
Rudloflf:  Gsch.  d.  Ref.  in  Schottland.  2  Th.  Berlin,  1849.  A. 
Gamberg:  Die  schottische  nat.  Kirche.  Hamb.,  1827.  K.  H. 
Sack :  Die  evang.  Kirche  Schottlands.  Heidelb.,  1844.  G.  Cook : 
Hist,  of  the  Ref.  in  Scotland.  3  vols.  Edinb.,  1811 .  Burton  :  Hist, 
of  Scotland  to  1688.  7  vols.  Lond.,  1867-70;  1689-1748.  2  vols. 
1870.  P.  F.  Tytler:  History  of  Scotland  [1149-1603],  new  ed.  10 
vols.  8vo.  1866.  Laing:  Hist,  of  Scotland  from  the  Accession  of 
James  I.  to  the  Reign  of  Queene  Anne.  1819.  4  vols.  8vo.  Law- 
son:  The  Episcopal  Church  of  Scotland  from  the  Reformation  to 
the  Revolution.  2  vols.  8vo.  1844.  Mignet:  Histoire  de  Marie 
Stuart.  2  vols.  12mo.  Paris,  1854.  W.  Tytler:  Inquiry,  His- 
torical and  Critical,  into  the  Evidence  against  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots,  etc.  2  vols.  8vo.  London,  1790.  J.  Hosack :  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots  and  her  Accusers.  2d  ed.  2  vols.  8vo.  1870.  Leland: 
History  of  Ireland  from  the  Invasion  of  Henry  II.  to  1688.  3  vols. 
4to.     1773. 

M.  Philippson  :  Marie  Stuart  et  la  Ligue  Catholique  universelle.    Brussels, 

1886.  Histoire  du  Regne  de  Marie  Stuart.     3  vols.,  Paris,  1891-92. 
A.  Lang  :  A  History  of  Scotland.     3  vols.,  London,  1900-04. 

P.  H.  Brown :  History  of  Scotland.     Cambridge,  1902. 

J.  Skelton :  The  Life  of  Mary  Stuart.     London,  1893.     A.  Lang :   The 

Mystery  of  Mary  Stuart.     London,  1901. 
M.  PhiUppson :  Les  Lettres  de  la  Casette,  in  the  Revue  Historique.    Paris, 

1887.  B.  Sepp :  Der  Originaltext  der  Cassettenbriefe.  Munich,  1888. 
T.  F.  Henderson :  The  Casket  Letters.  Edinburgh,  1890.  S.  Cowan : 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  and  who  wrote  the  Casket  Letters  ?  London, 
1901. 

Lives  of  Knox.     T.  McCrie:  Life  of  John  Knox,  1812.     New  edition, 

1854,  and  (edited  by  A.  Crichton),  Belfast,  1874.  P.  Lorimer:  John 
Knox  and  the  Church  of  England.  London,  1875.  F.  Brander :  John 
Knox.  Elberfeld,  1862.  P.  H.  Brown  :  John  Knox.  London,  1895. 
A.  Lang  :  John  Knox  and  the  Reformation.  London,  1905.  Henry 
Cowan:  John  Knox.     New  York,  1905. 


500  THE   REFORMATION 


The  Reformation  in  Italy 

Gerdesius  :   Specimen  Italise  Ref.     Lugd.     Bat.,  1765.    4to. 

McCrie  :   Hist,  of  the  Ref.  in  Italy.     8vo.     1827.     New  ed.     1855.     D. 

Erdmann :  Die  Ref.  u.  ihre  Martyrer  in  Italien.     Berlin,  1855.     Jules 

Bonnet  :  Vie  de  Olympia  Morata.     4"""  ed.     Paris,  1865.     Muratori : 

Annali  d'ltalia,  dal  Principio  dell'  Era  volgare  fine  all  anno  1750. 

12     vols.     8vo.     Rome,     1752-54.     Guicciardini :      Storia     d'ltalia. 

10  vols.     Pisa,  1819-20.     Hiibner :   Life  of  Sixtus  V.     2  vols.     8vo. 

1872.     Brieger:     Gaspar    Contarini    [on    the    Ratisbon   Conference]. 

Gotha,  1870.     M.  Young  :  Life  of  Paleario.     2  vols.     8vo.     London, 

1860.     Sixt:     Petrus    Paulus    Vergerius,    papstlicher    Nuntius,    etc. 

1855.     J.  Bonnet:  Aonio  Paleario,  Etude  sur  la  Reforme  en  Italic. 

12mo.     1862.     Roscoe :  Life  of  Leo  X.     6th  ed.  2  vols.     8vo.     1846. 

Audin:   Histoire  de  Leon  X.     2  vols.     8vo.     Paris.     3d  ed.     2  vols. 

8vo.     1851. 
K.    Benrath:     Uber   die    Quellen    der    italianischen    Reformationsge- 

schichte.      Bonn,    1876.      Bernadino   Ochino.      Leipzig,    1875.      Ge- 

schichte  der  Reformation  in  Venedig.     Halle,  1887. 
E.  Comba:  I  Nostri  Protestanti.     Florence,  1881,  1897.     M.  Carrasco : 

Alfonso  et  Juan  de  Valdes.     Geneva,  1880.     B.  Fontana :  Renata  di 

Francia.     Rome,  1889-99.     W.  Braun :  Gasparo  Contarini,  1903. 

The  Reformation  in  Spain 

Reformistas  Antiguos  Espanoles.  20  vols.  8vo.  London  and 
Madrid,  1848-63.  This  collection  of  the  writings  of  Spanish  Prot- 
estants was  printed  at  the  cost  of  B.  B.  Wiffen.  It  may  be  found 
in  the  Boston  Public  Lib. ;   also  in  the  Library  of  Harvard  College. 

A.  F.  Bilsching:  Comm.  de  Vestigiis  Lutheranismi  in  Hispania.  Got- 
tingen,  1755.  4to.  McCrie  :  Hist,  of  the  Ref.  in  Spain.  8vo. 
1829.  New  ed.  1855.  De  Castros:  The  Spanish  Prot.  and  their 
Suppression  by  Philip  II.  Translated  by  T.  Parker.  London, 
1851.  Sanctse  Inquisitionis  Artes  aliquot  detectse :  R.  G.  Montano 
auctore.  Heidelb.  1567.  Mariana  :  Hist.  General  de  Espaiia, 
18  vols.  Valencia,  1830-41.  2  vols.  8vo.  Madrid,  1854  (in  the 
Bibl.  de  Autores  Espaiioles,  vols.  19-20),  Engl,  transl.     1699.     R. 

St.  Hilaire,  Histoire  d'Espagne.  Tom.  xii.  New  ed.  1844  seq.  Dun- 
ham :  Hist,  of  Spain  and  Portugal.  New  ed.  3  vols.  12mo.  1847. 
Prescott:  History  of  the  Reign  of  Philip  II.  3  vols.  8vo.  1855. 
Ticknor  :  Hist,  of  Spanish  Literature.  3  vols.  8vo.  3d  ed.  Book, 
1866.  Llorente  :  Hist,  de  I'lnquisition  d'Espagne.  4  vols.  Paris. 
1820. 

E.  Boehmer :  Spanish  Reformers  of  Two  Centuries  from  1520.  2  vols., 
Strassburg  and  London,  1874,  1883.  J.  Lasalle:  La  Reforme  en 
Espagne,  au  16™®  siecle.  Paris,  1883.  E.  Christ :  Spanische  Glau- 
benschelden.  Basel,  1886.  C.  A.  Wilkens :  Geschichte  des  spanischen 
Protestantismus.     Giitersloh,  1888. 


APPENDIX   II  601 


The  Roman  Catholic  Counter-reformation 

W.  Maurenbrecher  :  Geschichte  der  Katholischen  Reformation.  Ndrd- 
lingen,  1880.  M.  Philippson :  La  Contre-revolution  religieuse  au  16°** 
siecle.  Brussels,  1884.  A.  W.  Ward:  The  Counter- Reformation. 
London,  1888.  A.  R.  Pennington.  The  Counter-Reformation  in 
Europe.     London,  1899. 

I.  The  Council  of  Trent.  Sources.  J.  le  Plat  (teacher  of  Canon  Law 
at  Louvain)  :  Monumentorum  ad  Hist.  Concil.  Trid.  Spectantium 
Amplissima  Collectio.     Louvain,  1781  seq.  7  (8)  torn.     4to. 

Acta  Cone.  Trid.  ann.  1562-63  a  Cardinale  Paieotto  descripta;  ed.  Mend- 
ham,  London,  1842. 

Lettres  et  Memoires  de  Franqois  de  Vargas,  de  Pierie  de  Malvenda  [mem- 
bers of  the  Imperial  embassy],  et  de  quelques  Evgques  d'Espagne, 
touchant  le  Cone,  de  Trente.     Paris,  1654.     4to. 

Mendham :  Memoirs  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  8vo.  London,  1834. 
New  ed.     1844. 

Planck:  Anecdota  ad  Hist.  Cone.  Trid.  Pertinentia.  Gottingen,  1791- 
1818,  26  programmata. 

Kollner:  De  actis  Concil.  trid.     Gottingen.     2  part.     8vo.     1841. 

Sickel :  Zur  Geschichte  d.  Concil.  von  Trient ;  Acten-stucke  aus  Oes- 
terreichischen  Archiven.     Vienna,  1872. 

Canones  et  Decreta  Cone.  Trid.,  juxta  Exemplar  authentic.  Romae 
editum,  ed.  le  Plat,  Antwerp,  1779.  4to.  Madrid,  1786.  Fol.  New 
ed.,  enlarged  from  the  Rom.  Bullarium,  by  A.  L.  Richter,  Leipzig, 
1853. 

LiBRi  Symbolici  eccl.  Cathol.,  edd.  Streitwolf  and  Klener,  Gottingen, 
1838.     2  vols.     8vo. 

P.  Schaff :  Creeds  of  Christendom,  Vol.  II.     New  York,  1877. 

Histories  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  Paolo  Sarpi  :  Istoria  del  Cone.  Tri- 
dent., London,  1619,  fol.;  in  Latin,  London,  1620;  Engl,  transla- 
tion by  Brent,  1676,  fol.  French  ed.,  with  notes  by  Le  Courayer, 
London,  2  tom.,  folio,  1736. 

Sforza  Pallavicino  :  Istoria  del  Cone,  di  Trento.  Roma,  1656-7. 
2  t.,  fol. :  2d  ed.,  3  t.,  4to,  1665  :  in  Latin,  Giattino,  Rom.  and  Antvp., 
1672,  3  t.,  4to;  new  ed.  revised  by  the  author,  Rome,  1666. 

Biografia  di  Frh,  Paolo  Sarpi  di  Bianchi-Giovini.  Zurigo,  1836,  2  t.  E. 
Munch:   Fra  P.  Sarpi,  Carlsruhe,  1838. 

Wessenberg  [Roman  Catholic]:  Die  grossen  Kirchenversammlimgen 
der  15.  u.  16.  Jahrh.     4  vols.     Constance,  1840. 

Courayer :  Discours  Hist,  sur  la  Reception  du  Concile  de  Trente.  Am- 
sterdam, 1756  (appendix  to  Sarpi).  Bungener:  Hist,  du  Concile 
de  Trente.     2  vols.     12mo.     1853. 

F.  Baguenault  de  Purchesse :  Histoire  du  Concile  de  Trent.     Paris,  1870. 

Vermeulen  :  Die  Verlegung  des  Konzil  von  Trent.     Regensburg,  1890-92. 

J.  A.  Froude :  Lectures  on  the  Council  of  Trent.     London,  1896. 

The  Popes  of  this  Period.  Ranke  :  History  of  the  Popes.  3  vols.  8vo. 
1867. 


502  THE  REFORMATION 

Lorentz  :  Sixtus  V.  u,  seine  Zeit.     Mayence,  1852. 

HiJBNER :  Life  of  Pope  Sixtus  V.     Engl,  transl.     2  vols.     8vo.     1872. 

II.  The  Order  of  Jesuits.  Corpus  Institutorum  Societatis  Jesu.  Antvp., 
1702.     2  vols.     4to. 

Constitutiones,  Decreta  Congregationum,  Censurae  et  Proecepta,  cum 
Litteris  Apostol.  et  Privilegiis.  Prague,  1755.  2  vols.  4to.  In- 
stitutum  soc.  Jesu.     Prague,   1757.     Fol. 

Monumenta  historica  Societatis  Jesu  nunc  primum  edita.    Madrid,  1894  seq. 

Lives  of  Ignatius  Loyola :  Consalvi,  in  Acta  Sanctorum,  Jul.  vii. 
634  seq. ;  by  Ribadeneira,  Naples,  1572,  Madrid,  1586,  and  in 
Acta  Sanct.  1.  c.  655  seq.;  by  Maffei,  Rome,  1585;  by  Bartoli, 
Rome,  1659.  Genelli :  Leben  d.  heilig.  Loyola.  Innsbruck,  1848, 
I.  Taylor;  Loyola  and  Jesuitism  in  its  Rudiments.  8vo.  London. 
1849.  E.  GoTHEiN :  Ignatius  von  Loyola  und  die  Gegenreformation. 
Halle,  1895. 

Exercitia  Spiritualia  Ign.  Loiolse,  Antvp.,  1638,  Ratisbon,  1855.  History 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  by  Hasenmuller,  1588;  by  Gretser,  Ingolstadt, 
1584;  by  R.  Hospinian,  Zurich  (1649),  1670.  Hist.  d.  Religieux  de 
la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  Paris,  1740,  Utrecht,  1741.     4to.     4  torn. 

Harenberg :  Pragm.  Gsch.  d.  Ordens  d.  Jesuiten.  Halle,  1760.  2  vols. 
4to.  [Goudrette :]  Hist.  Generale  de  la  Naissance  et  des  Progres 
de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus;  et  [C.  Paige]  I'Analyse  de  ses  Constitu- 
tions et  Privileges.  Paris,  1760.  Amst.,  1761,  5  vols.  Wolf:  AUg. 
Gsch.   d.  Jesuiten.     4  vols.     Leipzig,   1803. 

Histories  of  the  Jesuits,  by  Dallas,  2  vols.  London,  1816;  by  Lis- 
kenne,  Paris,  1825;  by  De  Sarrion,  Paris,  1838;  by  Cretineau 
JoLY,  Paris,  1844-6,  6  tomes ;  by  Brlihl,  Wtlrzburg,  1845  seq. ;  by 
Buss,  Mayence,  2  abth.,  1853 ;  by  Stoger,  Ratisbon,  1851 ;  by  Kor- 
tum,  Mannheim,  1843;  by  Julius,  Leipzig,  1845  seq.;  by  Stein- 
METz,  London,  1848.     3  vols.     8vo. 

For  the  multitudinous  works  respecting  the  Jesuits,  reference  must  be 
had  to  the  special  bibliographies :  — 

Carayon :  Bibl.  historique  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  ou  Catalogue 
des  ouvrages  relatifs  a  I'histoire  des  Jesuites  depuis  leur  origine,  etc. 
4to.     1864. 

Bibliotheque  des  Ecrivains  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  ou  Notices  bib- 
liographiques  1"  De  tous  les  ouvrages  publies  par  les  Membres  de 
la  Compagnie  de  Jesus;  2°  Des  Apologies,  des  Contro verses  reU- 
gieuses,  des  Critiques  litteraires  et  scientifiques  suscitees  a  leur  sujet. 
Par  Augustin  et  Alois  de  Backer,  Serie  i.-vii.,  1853-61.  Of  this 
work,  Petzholdt  {Bihliothec.  bibliograph,  1866),  after  referring  to  the 
previous  bibliographical  labors  of  Ribadeneira,  Alegambe,  and  South- 
well, says:  "Alles  was  von  Jesuiten-bibliographie  bisher  erschienea 
ist,  wird  durch  das  B.'sche  Werk  durchaus  iiberflussig  gemacht." 


INDEX 


Academies,  the  Italian,  broken  up  by 
the  Inquisition,  343. 

"  Acceptants,"  382. 

Adiaphoristic  controversy,  144. 

Adrian  VI.,  Pope,  on  the  corruption  of 
the  church,  11;  his  character,  101; 
reply  of  the  Diet  of  Nuremberg  (1522) 
to  his  demand  for  action  against 
Luther,  101 ;  his  letter  to  ZwingU,  128. 

^sop,  Luther  translates,  106. 

Aix  la  Chapelle,  Peace  of,  384. 

Albigenses,  their  character,  46 ;  cru- 
sades of  Innocent  III.  against  them,  46. 

Alciati,  402. 

Aleander,  94. 

Alengon,  Duke  of  (husband  of  Margaret), 
213. 

Alengon,  Duke  of  (Duke  of  Anjou),  liis 
death,  240. 

Alexander  III.,  his  interview  with  Fred- 
eric Barbarossa,  24. 

Alexander  V.,  Pope,  his  pledges  to  the 
council  of  Pisa,  35. 

Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  his  grant  to  Spain, 
40 ;  his  character,  37 ;  excommuni- 
cates Savonarola,  53. 

Alexander  of  Hales,  his  doctrine  of  su- 
pererogatory merits,  79. 

Allen,  William,  351,  425. 

Alphonso,  king  of  Portugal,  39. 

Altieri,  334. 

Alva,  Duke  of,  at  the  conference  of  Bay- 
onne,  233 ;  his  character,  258 ;  his 
recommendations  to  Philip  II.,  258 ; 
sent  to  the  Netherlands,  258  ;  marches 
from  Italy,  258  ;  establishes  the  "Coun- 
cil of  Blood,"  259;  executes  Egmont 
and  Horn,  260;  his  scheme  of  taxa- 
tion, 260;  resigns,  261. 

Amboise,  conspiracy  of,  225 ;  avenged 
by  Guise,  225  ;  edict  of,  232. 

Anabaptists,  their  tenets,  400 ;  different 
classes  of,  401  ;  numerous  in  the  Neth- 
erlands, 266 ;  influence  of  Menno  on 
them,  266. 

Anderson,  I>awrence,  153. 

Anglo-Saxons,  their  conversion,  19. 


Anne  Boleyn,  her  return  to  England, 
213;  her  marriage  with  Henry  VIII., 
273. 

Anquetil,  on  Catharine  de  Medici,  222. 

Anselm,  element  of  mysticism  in,  54 ; 
his  doctrine  of  the  satisfaction  of 
Christ,  388. 

Anthony  of  Navarre,  summoned  to  Or- 
leans, 226;  made  lieutenant-general, 
227. 

Antitrinitarians,  rise  of  the,  401. 

Aquinas,  his  doctrine  of  indulgences,  79 ; 
of  supererogatory  merits,  80 ;  on  the 
infallibility  of  the  Pope,  25. 

Arianism,  its  prevalence  among  the  bar- 
barian nations,  18;  supplanted  by 
Catholicism,  18. 

Aristotle,  connection  of  scholasticism 
with,  451  ;  his  authority  shaken  by 
the  Humanists,  451 ;  how  far  attacked 
by  the  reformers,  451 ;  by  Luther,  451 ; 
Melancthon's  view  of,  451  ;  retained 
his  place  in  Catholic  universities,  452. 

Armies,  constitution  of  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  360. 

Arminians,  their  doctrines,  398;  their 
scholarship,  400 ;  their  poUtical  differ- 
ence with  the  Calvinists,  269 ;  their 
critical  spirit,  458. 

Arminius,  his  history,  398;  his  contro- 
versy with  Gomarus,  398;  Milton's 
remark  on,  444. 

Arnauld,  381,  447. 

Arneys,  Antoine,  198. 

Arnold,  of  Brescia,  his  aim  and  fate,  328. 

Arnold,  T.,  on  Church  and  State,  421.       V 

Arran,  Eari  of,  300. 

Art,  how  affected  by  Protestantism,  454  ; 
in  the  Netherlands,  455. 

Articles,  the  ten,  275 ;  they  offend  the 
Catholic  party,  276  ;   the  six,  276. 

Articles,  of  the  Church  of  England, 
framed,  278;  revision  of  (1563),  282. 

Articles,  the  Lambeth,  289. 

Asceticism,  its  origin  in  the  Church,  464; 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  464  ;  cast  away  by 
Protestantism,  464. 


503 


504 


INDEX 


Astrology,  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 

centuries,  2. 
Atonement,     Protestant     and     Catholic 

view  of,  388;    the  theory  of  Grotius, 

399. 
Augsburg,  Diet  at  (1530),  104;    its  de- 
cree, 105. 
Augsburg,  Confession  of,  105 ;    Apology 

for  the  Confession,  105. 
Augsburg,    peace    of,    146  ;    wholesome 

effect   of    it,    357 ;     violations    of    it, 

364. 
Augustine,  on  religious  persecution,  194  ; 

he  is  studied  by  Luther,  77 ;    how  he 

differs  from  Calvin,  287. 
Austria,     spread    of    Protestantism    in, 

357  ;  Jesuit  influence  in,  357. 
Autos  da  f6,  in  Spain,  346. 
Avignon,  residence  of  the  popes  at,  32 ; 

character  of  their  court,  32. 

Babylonian  captivity  of  the  Papacy,  32. 

Bacon,  Leonard,  his  Historical  Dis- 
courses, 372. 

Bacon,  Lord,  his  view  of  astrology,  3  ;  on 
the  Puritan  controversy,  297 ;  on  epis- 
copacy, 285  ;  on  church  government, 
298 ;  relation  of  his  system  to  Protes- 
tantism, 452. 

Bajus,  380. 

Balmes,  his  view  of  the  Reformation,  5. 

Baltimore,  Lord,  428. 

Barne veldt,  Olden,  399. 

Baronius,  21 ;  his  annals,  440. 

Basel,  council  of,  43 ;  it  hears  the  Utra- 
quists,  157 ;  Reformation  estabhshed 
in,  125. 

Baur,  F.  C,  459 ;  on  Servetus,  202. 

Baxter,  Richard,  369 ;  his  character, 
373;  ejected  from  his  parish  (1662), 
373. 

Bayle,  on  Leo  X.,  38. 

Bayonne,  conference  at,  233. 

Beaton,  Cardinal,  300. 

Beda,  the  Syndic,  210. 

Beghards,  who  they  were,  47. 

Beguines,  who  they  were,  47. 

Bellarmine,  on  the  corruption  of  the 
Church,  11;  on  the  visible  Church, 
392 ;  on  Church  and  State,  425. 

Bembo,  Cardinal,  his  spirit,  62. 

Berengarius,  129. 

Bernard,  St.,  mysticism  of,  54. 

Bernard,  of  Weimar,  364. 

Berne,  Reformation,  established  in,  125. 

Berquin,  Louis  de,  214. 

Berthelier,  200;  put  to  death,  182. 

Beveridge,  376. 

Beza,  Theodore  ;  his  character  and  man- 
ners, 229 ;    at  the  Colloquy  of  Poissy, 


229;  on  Cahan's  death,  206;  his  re- 
mark on  the  death  of  Francis  II.,  227 ; 
on  the  origin  of  the  word  "Huguenot," 
227. 

Bible,  the  source  of  Protestantism,  8; 
Luther's  translation  of  the,  99;  its 
benefit  to  the  Germans,  99  ;  early  Ger- 
man translations  of  the,  99  ;  published 
in  English  by  Henry  VIII.,  275 ;  made 
by  the  Protestants  the  rule  of  faith, 
389 ;  effect  of  it  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries, 446 ;  the  reading  of  it  not  en- 
couraged in  the  Cathohc  Church,  446 ; 
origin  of  the  disuse  of  it  among  the 
laity,  447. 

Biel,  Gabriel,  393. 

Blandrata,  402. 

Blois,  meeting  of  the  States-General  at 
(1576),  239;   (1588),  240. 

Boccaccio,  his  relation  to  the  revival  of 
learning,  58 ;  his  treatment  of  the 
Church  and  religion,  330. 

Bodin,  3. 

Bohemia,  how  affected  by  the  execution 
of  Huss,  154 ;  its  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity, 155 ;  its  sufferings  after  the 
Smalcaldic  war,  159 ;  Protestants  ac- 
quire legal  protection  in,  159 ;  recep- 
tion of  Luther's  doctrine  in,  158;  its 
revolt  against  Ferdinand  II.,  358 ; 
gives  its  crown  to  the  Elector  Palatine, 
359 ;    devastated,  359. 

Bologna,  Protestantism  in,  333. 

Bolsec,  imprisoned  at  Geneva,  187 ; 
banished,    196. 

Bonaventura,  mysticism  of,  54. 

Boniface,  the  apostle  of  Germany,  19. 

Boniface  VIII.,  his  theories  and  charac- 
ter, 30 ;  opposed  by  the  spirit  of  na- 
tionalism, 31  ;  his  conflict  with  Philip 
the  Fair,  31 ;  his  bull,  clericus  laicos, 
31 ;  is  assaulted  and  dies,  32 ;  how 
viewed  by  Tosti,  Wiseman,  and 
Schwab,  30. 

Books,  censorship  of,  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  443 ;  in  Protestant 
countries,  444  ;  by  Laud,  444  ;  by  the 
Puritans,  445. 

Bora,  Catharine  von,  her  marriage  with 
Luther,  108. 

Borromeo,  Carlo,  his  character,  350. 

Bossuet,  442,  454 ;  refers  the  Reforma- 
tion to  a  dispute  of  monks,  3 ;  on  the 
relation  of  Protestantism  to  abuses  in 
the  Church,  11  ;  on  the  corruption  of 
the  Church,  11  ;  his  opinion  of  Calvin's 
intellect,  181  ;  his  correspondence  with 
Molanus,  407 ;   with  Leibnitz,  407. 

Bothwell,  Mary's  attachment  to  him, 
305 ;   his  agency  in  Darnley's  murder, 


INDEX 


506 


318;  his  abduction  of  the  queen,  318; 
his  supper  at  Edinburgh,  318 ;  his 
divorce  from  his  wife,  319;  his  mar- 
riage with  Mary,  319. 

Boucher,  Jean,  401. 

Bourbons,  their  union  with  the  Hugue- 
nots, 223. 

Bradford  on  predestination,  286. 

Brantome,  on  Guise  and  Coligni,  225 ; 
admires  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  304. 

Breda,  declaration  of  Charles  II.  from, 
372. 

Brederode,  255. 

Bres,  Guido  de,  266. 

Brethren  in  Unity,  the  Bohemian,  rise 
of,  158 ;  their  reception  of  Luther's 
doctrine,  158. 

Brigonnet,  his  reformatory  tendencies, 
211 ;    opposes  Protestantism,  211. 

Briel,  capture  of,  260. 

Brucioli,  333. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  440. 

Bryce,  his  work  on  the  "Holy  Roman 
Empire,"  21. 

Bucer,  Martin,  his  irenical  efforts,  132; 
a  professor  at  Cambridge,  278 ;  on 
ceremonies  in  the  English  Church,  293  ; 
his  letter  to  the  Protestants  of  Bo- 
logna, 334. 

Buchanan,  George,  301. 

Budaeus,  210;  Erasmus  compared  with, 
66. 

Bugenhagen,  shapes  the  church  consti- 
tution of  Denmark,  150. 

Bullinger,  on  the  execution  of  Servetus, 
202 ;  his  intimacy  with  English  di- 
vines, 284. 

Burckhardt,  on  the  tone  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  331. 

Burleigh,  his  belief  in  astrology,  2. 

Burnet,  for  comprehension,  376. 

Burns,  446. 

Cajetan,  his  interviews  with  Luther  at 
Augsburg,  83. 

Calderon,  438. 

Calixtus,  his  syncretism,  405. 

Calixtus  II.,  Pope,  concludes  the  Worms 
Concordat  with  Henry  V.,  24. 

Calmar,  Union  of,  148. 

Calvin,  his  birth,  166 ;  belongs  to  the 
second  generation  of  Reformers,  166; 
his  childhood,  166;  his  father,  166; 
studies  at  Paris,  167 ;  studies  law  at 
Orleans  and  Bourges,  167;  his  profi- 
ciency, 167  ;  his  habits  of  study,  167  ; 
learns  Greek,  168;  edits  Seneca's  trea- 
tise on  "Clemency,"  168;  for  what 
reason,  168;  his  conversion,  169;  its 
date,     169 ;      his     reverence     for     the 


Church,  169 ;  his  reserve  and  shy- 
ness, 169;  devoted  to  religious  studies, 
170;  about  an  address  for  Nicholas 
Cop,  170;  flies  from  Paris,  172;  visits 
B6arn,  172 ;  again  flies  from  Paris, 
173;  his  "Psychopannychia,"  173; 
at  Strasburg,  173;  composes  the  "In- 
stitutes," 173;  first  prints  them  in 
Latin,  173 ;  his  dedication  to  Francis 
I.,  173 ;  his  personal  characteristics, 
174 ;  how  esteemed  by  Melancthon, 
175 ;  constant  in  his  opinions,  175 ; 
his  conception  of  the  Church,  176  ;  his 
doctrine  of  Predestination,  176 ;  his 
practical  motive  in  it,  176 ;  his  doc- 
trine compared  with  Augustine's,  177;. 
with  Luther's,  177 ;  not  an  extremist 
with  regard  to  rites,  178;  his  letter  to 
Somerset,  178 ;  criticises  the  Angli- 
can Church,  178 ;  his  letter  to  Cran- 
mer,  178  ;  contrasted  with  Luther,  179 ; 
his  censorious  tone,  179 ;  want  of 
health,  179 ;  his  passionate  temper, 
179  ;  his  homage  to  law,  179  ;  his  zeal 
for  the  honor  of  God,  180;  his  hymns, 
180,  206  ;  his  high  qualities,  180 ;  visits 
the  Duchess  of  Ferrara,  181,  333; 
stops  in  Geneva  on  his  return,  181 ; 
moved  by  Farel  to  remain,  185 ;  his 
first  work  there,  185 ;  refuses  to  ad- 
minister the  Sacrament,  186 ;  is  ban- 
ished, 186  ;  at  Strasburg,  186  ;  attends 
the  German  conferences,  186 ;  his  op- 
position to  the  Leipsic  Interim,  187 ; 
his  regard  for  Luther,  187  ;  his  friend- 
ship for  Melancthon,  187 ;  his  rela- 
tions to  the  Zwinglian  churches,  188 ; 
how  treated  by  Berne,  188 ;  his  mar- 
riage, 188;  recalled  to  Geneva,  188; 
his  letter  to  Sadolet,  189 ;  his  ecclesi- 
astical and  civil  system,  189 ;  revises 
the  eldership,  190;  influence  of  the 
Mosaic  code  on  his  scheme  of  govern- 
ment, 191 ;  opposed  by  the  Libertines 
and  Patriots,  192 ;  rejoices  at  the 
Edict  of  St.  Germain,  230  ;  condemned 
the  plot  to  assassinate  Guise,  232; 
favors  the  forcible  suppression  of  re- 
ligious error,  195 ;  his  conflicts  at 
Geneva,  196 ;  his  controversy  with 
Castellio,  196;  his  vituperative  epi- 
thets, 197 ;  his  concern  in  the  trial 
and  death  of  Servetus,  197-200;  his 
action  in  this  affair,  judged  by  Guizot, 
201  ;  his  treatment  of  L.tpHus  Socinus, 
201  ;  his  triumph  over  the  libertines, 
203 ;  his  description  of  his  conflicts, 
203 ;  his  labors  and  influence,  203 ; 
his  correspondence,  204 ;  his  influ- 
ence on  the  French  reformation,  205] 


506 


INDEX 


his  last  days,  205;  his  various  em- 
ployments, 204 ;  his  last  interview 
with  the  Senate,  205 ;  with  the  Clergy, 
205 ;  his  review  of  his  career,  205 ; 
his  death,  206 ;  his  character,  206 ; 
faults  of  his  constitution  at  Geneva, 
207 ;  his  letter  to  Margaret,  Q.  of  Na- 
varre, 213 ;  how  regarded  by  Hugue- 
not martyrs,  221 ;  inculcates  obedi- 
ence to  rulers,  224  ;  disapproves  of  the 
Amboise  conspiracy,  225 ;  charged 
with  Arianism,  185;  on  Zwingli's 
view  of  the  Eucharist,  187 ;  his  influ- 
ence in  England,  288 ;  his  difference 
from  Augustine,  287 ;  his  doctrine  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  130;  on  the  ob- 
servance of  Sunday,  406. 

Calvinism,  as  a  theological  system,  207 ; 
how  it  promoted  civil  liberty,  207  ;  its 
theory  of  the  powers  of  Church  and 
State,  207 ;  republican  character  of 
its  church  constitution,  208 ;  its  the- 
ology equalizes  men  by  exalting  God, 
208  ;  compared  with  Romanism,  in  its 
view  of  Church  and  State,  208 ; 
sources  of  opposition  to  it  in  France, 
215 ;  more  attractive  to  France  than 
Lutheranism,  218;  in  the  Church  of 
England,  286-288;  how  it  spread  in 
the  Netherlands,  247 ;  hostility  of 
Lutherans  to,  357  ;  its  five  points,  399. 

Calvinists,  prevail  in  the  Netherlands, 
266;  adopt  the  "Confessio  Belgica, " 
266 ;  do  not  favor  religious  liberty  in 
the  Netherlands,  267 ;  finally  petition 
for  it  (1578),  268  ;  their  political  differ- 
ence with  the  Arminians,  269 ;  pro- 
vision for  them  in  the  Treaty  of  West- 
phalia, 365;  see  "Protestants," 
"Reformation,"  and  under  the  differ- 
ent countries. 

Cambray,  Peace  of,  104. 

Campeggio,  legate  of  Clement  VII.,  101. 

Cappel,  war  of,  135. 

Caracci,  school  of,  350,  440. 

Caraffa,  his  hostility  to  doctrinal  innova- 
tions, 336 ;  on  the  spread  of  Protes- 
tantism in  Italy,  334 ;  organizes  the 
Inquisition  in  Italy,  342 ;  its  cruelty, 
343  ;  his  Consihum  to  Paul  III.,  344  ; 
his  prohibitory  Index,  344. 

Carlstadt,  disputes  with  Eck  at  Leipsic, 
85 ;  his  iconoclastic  movement  at 
Wittenberg,  100. 

Carlyle,  on  the  nations  which  rejected 
the  Reformation,  431. 

Carnesecchi,  Pietro,  334;  put  to  death, 
349. 

Carranza,  Bartolome  de,  persecution  of, 
347. 


Cartwright,  his  principles,  294. 

"Casket  letters,"  the  question  of  their 
genuineness,  319. 

Cassander,  405. 

Castellio,  his  charges  against  Calvin,  196 ; 
banished  from  Geneva,  197.  * 

Cateau-Cambresis,  Peace  of,  220. 

Catharine  of  Aragon,  her  marriage  with 
Prince  Arthur  not  consummated, 
272. 

Catharine  de  Medici,  her  childhood,  221 ; 
her  relations  to  her  husband,  221 ;  her 
dependence  on  Diana  of  Poitiers,  221 ; 
her  ambition,  222 ;  balked  by  the 
Guises,  222 ;  acquires  power  on  the 
death  of  Francis  II.,  227 ;  at  the  Con- 
ference of  Bayonne,  233 ;  aims  to 
balance  the  parties  against  each  other, 
233  ;  her  motives  in  making  the  treaty 
of  St.  Germain,  234  ;  plans  a  marriage 
between  Q.  Elizabeth  and  her  son,  235 ; 
her  jealousy  of  Coligny,  235  ;  plots  his 
assassination,  236  ;  visits  him  after  he 
is  wounded,  236 ;  her  agency  in  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  237 ; 
her  policy  after  it,  239. 

Catharine  von  Bora,  her  marriage  with 
Luther,  108. 

Catharists,  their  principles,  45. 

Catholics,  evangelical,  persecution  of 
them,  347. 

Catholic  reaction,  its  vitality,  how 
shown,  348 ;  how  affected  by  the  de- 
feat of  the  Armada,  356 ;  by  the  ac- 
cession of  Henry  IV.,  356 ;  prostration 
of  it,  385. 

Catholicism,  Roman,  more  cherished  in 
Southern  Europe,  354. 

Catholicism,  Spanish,  its  spirit  not 
suited  to   France,  216. 

Cazalla,  Augustine,  346. 

Cecil,  minister  of  James  I.,  367. 

Celibacy,  its  effect  on  the  Papacy,  24. 

Cervantes,  438. 

Cesarini,  Cardinal  Julian,  157. 

Chalcedon,  council  of,  influenced  by 
Leo  I.,   16. 

Chalmers,  on  Church  and  State,  422. 

Charlemagne,  crowned  at  Rome,  19; 
Emperor  of  the  West,  19 ;  his  rela- 
tions to  the  Papacy,  19 ;  effect  of  the 
breaking  up  of  his  Empire  on  the  Pa- 
pacy, 20. 

Charles  I.,  his  arbitrary  principles,  368 ; 
his  treatment  of  Papists,  368. 

Charles  II.,  his  restoration,  372 ;  his 
declaration  from  Breda,  372 ;  violates 
his  pledges,  372 ;  his  character,  373 ; 
Anglican  Reaction  under,  373 ;  his 
alliance  with  Louis  XIV.,  374. 


INDEX 


507 


Charles  IV.,  the  Golden  Bull  of,  90. 

Charles  V.,  his  struggle  with  Francis  I., 
41 ;  his  extensive  dominions,  91 ;  elect- 
ed Emperor  of  Germany,  91 ;  reasons 
for  the  choice,  91 ;  alarm  occasioned 
by  it  in  Europe,  92 ;  hostility  of  Fran- 
cis I.  to,  and  its  grounds,  92 ;  his 
character,  93 ;  how  he  acted  in  the 
affair  of  the  Reformation,  93 ;  his 
ruling  desire,  93 ;  summons  Luther  to 
the  Diet  of  Worms,  94 ;  his  regret  that 
he  did  not  then  destroy  Luther,  97 ; 
his  agreement  with  Leo  X.,  98;  his 
action  with  regard  to  the  assembly  at 
Spires,  102;  league  formed  against 
him,  102 ;  chooses  to  maintain  the  old 
idea  of  the  Empire,  103  ;  makes  peace 
with  Clement  VII.,  104;  disabled 
from  crushing  Protestantism  for  ten 
years  (from  1532),  137;  his  expedi- 
tion to  Algiers,  138 ;  his  superficial 
estimate  of  Protestantism,  143 ;  es- 
tablishes the  Interim,  143 ;  opposed 
by  Paul  III.,  144;  leaves  Ferdinand 
to  negotiate  with  the  Protestants,  146  ; 
abdicates,  147,  248;  baffled  by  the 
moral  force  of  Protestantism,  356 ;  his 
persecution  in  the  Netherlands,  246 ; 
its  effect  on  the  country,  248 ;  his 
cloister  life,  249  ;  his  bigotry,  249 ;  his 
death,  347. 

Charles  IX.,  becomes  king  of  Sweden, 
154. 

Charles  VIII.,  of  France,  his  invasion  of 
Italy,  9. 

Charles  IX.,  of  France,  his  accession, 
227  ;  his  anger  at  the  Huguenot  rising, 
233  ;  impressed  by  Colignj^  235  ;  visits 
him  after  he  is  wounded,  236 ;  his 
death,  239. 

Ch&telar,  304. 

Chaucer,  on  the  mendicant  friars,  29. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  2. 

Christian  II.,  of  Denmark,  favors  Prot- 
estantism, 148 ;  retreats,  149 ;  his 
cruelty  in  Sweden,  149  ;   deposed,  149. 

Christian  III.,  of  Denmark,  introduces 
Protestantism,  150. 

Christian  IV.,  of  Denmark,  his  defeat, 
360. 

Christianity,  spirituality  of,  12;  its  rela- 
tion to  culture,  463. 

Church,  affected  by  judaizing  ideas,  12; 
simple  organization  of  the  apostolic, 
12;  it  is  municipal,  13;  its  officers  at 
the  outset,  13 ;  rise  of  the  Episcopate 
in  it,  13;  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  on 
the  visible,  14 ;  influence  of  political 
models  on  its  polity,  15 ;  primacy  of 
the  Roman  See  in  the,  16;    effect  of 


the  fall  of  Roman  Empire  on  the,  18  ; 
reaction  of  the  spiritual  element  in 
the,  44. 

Church,  the  polity  of,  the  principles  of 
the  Lutheran  Reformers,  410;  not 
reaUzed  by  them,  411 ;  Zwingli's  view 
of,  416  ;  Calvin's  view  of,  417. 

Church  of  England,  under  James  I.,  366; 
its  new  theory  of  Episcopacy,  366  ;  be- 
comes Arminian,  366 ;  zeal  for  it  after 
the  restoration,  373 ;  theories  of  its 
relation  to  the  State,  420;  the  Eras- 
tian  doctrine,  420;  Hooker's  view, 
420 ;  Arnold's  view,  421 ;  Warburton's 
view,  421;  Coleridge's  view,  421; 
Gladstone's  view,  422 ;  Chalmers's 
view,  422;    Macaulay's  view,  423. 

Church,  Roman  Catholic,  in  the  United 
States,  428 ;  how  far  responsible  for 
persecution,  437 ;  on  the  reading  of 
the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  446. 

Church,  Scottish  Protestant,  its  worship 
and  constitution,  322 ;  becomes  fully 
Presbyterian,  323. 

Church  and  State,  view  of  the  Reformers 
on  their  connection,  410;  view  of 
Luther  and  Melancthon,  412 ;  of  Zwin- 
gli,  416 ;  of  Calvin,  417 ;  their  con- 
nection in  England,  420 ;  Roman 
Catholic  theories,  424;  Bellarmine's 
view,  425 ;  doctrine  of  the  Jesuits, 
425 ;  American  theory  of  their  rela- 
tion, 428. 

Civil  authority,  inquiries  into  the  nature 
of,  33. 

Clarendon,  Constitutions  of,  33. 

Clement  VII.,  his  treatment  of  Henry 
VIII. 's  petition  for  a  divorce,  272; 
cannot  induce  the  Diet  of  Nuremberg 
(1524)  to  suppress  Lutheranism,  101 ; 
a  prisoner  of  Charles  V.,  103. 

Clement  XL,  against  the  Jansenists,  382. 

Clementine  HomiUes,  on  Peter  as  Bishop 
of  Rome,  15. 

Cloisters,  confiscation  of  their  property 
in  England,  274. 

Coleridge,  on  the  Papacy,  42  ;  on  Church 
and  State,  421. 

Colet,  270;  his  character  and  services, 
64. 

Coligni,  refuses  to  join  in  the  Amboise 
conspiracy,  225 ;  presents  the  Hugue- 
not petition,  225 ;  takes  no  part  in  the 
assassination  of  Guise,  232 ;  disap- 
proves of  the  Edict  of  Amboise,  232 ; 
finds  safety  in  Rochelle,  233  ;  resumes 
hostilities,  234 ;  at  Jarnac  and  Mon- 
contour,  233 ;  his  character,  223 ; 
comes  to  the  court,  235 ;  his  lofty 
qualities,     235;     his    influence    over 


508 


INDEX 


Charles  IX.,  235 ;  proposes  war  with 
Spain,  236 ;  plot  to  assassinate  him, 
236 ;  he  is  wounded,  23G ;  visited  by 
Charles  IX.  and  Catharine  de  Medici, 
236. 

Cologne,  Elector  of,  his  conversion  to 
Protestantism,  358. 

Colonna,  Sciarra,  he  assaults  Boniface 
VIII.,  31. 

Colonna,  Vittoria,  334. 

Compactata,  granted  to  the  Utraquists, 
157. 

Company,  the  Venerable,  at  Geneva, 
191. 

Comprehension,  opportunities  for,  lost  by 
the  Church  of  England,  373,  376. 

Compromise,  formed  by  the  nobles  in 
the  Netherlands,  255;  their  design, 
255. 

Concord,  Form  of,  404. 

Cond^,  Louis,  Prince  de,  his  character, 
223 ;  privy  to  the  Amboise  conspiracy, 
225 ;  under  arrest  at  Orleans,  226 ; 
tried  for  treason,  226 ;  his  lack  of 
wisdom,  233  ;  finds  safety  in  Rochelle, 
233 ;  falls  at  Jarnac,  233. 

Cond6,  Henry,  Prince  de,  sallies  forth 
with  Coligni  from  Rochelle,  234 ;  ex- 
communicated by  Sixtus  V.,  240. 

Conference  at  Ratisbon,  138. 

"Congregatio  de  propaganda  fide,"  462. 

Congregationalism,  in  the  P'rench  Church 
419 ;   in  New  England,  426. 

Conrad  of  Waldhausen,  51. 

Consistories  in  the  Lutheran  churches, 
413. 

Consistory,  its  functions,  in  Geneva,  190. 

Constance,  coimcil  of,  35;  failure  of  it, 
36. 

Constantine,  relation  of  Church  and 
State  under,  and  under  his  successors, 
17 ;  his  alleged  donation  exposed  by 
Valla,  330. 

Constitution  of  Germany,  90 ;  altera- 
tions of  it,    under  Maximilian,  90. 

Contarini,  at  Ratisbon,  138. 

Convocation,  in  the  English  Church,  423. 

Cop,  Nicholas,  170. 

Corderius,  he  teaches  Calvin,  167. 

Council,  of  Pisa,  35 ;  of  Constance,  35 ; 
of  Basel,  36. 

Council  of  Trent,  condemns  Protestant 
doctrine,  340;  Paul  III.,  transfers  it 
to  Bologna,  340 ;  its  benefit  to  the 
Catholic  cause,  341. 

Council.s,  the  Reforming,  35. 

Covenanters  of  Scotland,  377. 

Cox,  Bishop  of  Ely,  in  the  vestment 
controversy,  292 ;  Elizabeth 's  treat- 
ment of,  295. 


Cramner,  his  advice  to  Henry  VIII.,  on 
the  divorce,  273  ;  decrees  the  divorce, 
274 ;  protected  by  Henry  VIII.,  277 ; 
calls  theologians  from  the  continent, 
278 ;  his  character,  275 ;  his  view  of 
the  tenure  of  church  officers,  283 ;  pro- 
poses a  Protestant  council,  284 ;  Cal- 
vin's letter  to,  179;  his  opinion  on 
the  Eucharist,  290 ;  his  recantation, 
280  ;  his  faults,  281 ;  his  death,  281 ; 
effect  of  it,  281. 

Creeds,  Erasmus's  opinion  of,  68. 

Crell,  403. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  England  under,  372; 
his  "Triers,"  370. 

Cromwell,  Thomas,  275;  execution  of, 
277. 

Cues,  Nicholas  of,  56. 

Cup,  withdrawal  of  it  from  the  laity, 
155  ;    doctrine  of  Aquinas,  155. 

Cyprian,  on  the  primacy  of  the  Roman 
See,  15  ;    against  persecution,  194. 

Cyril,  missionary  in  Bohemia,  154. 

D'Ailly,  his  theory  of  the  Episcopate,  35. 

D'Albret,  Jeanne,  Q.  of  Navarre,  her 
court  at  Rochelle,  234. 

Damascus,  John  of,  129. 

Dandelot,  223. 

Dante,  heralds  a  new  era  of  culture,  58 ; 
chastises  the  Papacy,  28,  29 ;  on  the 
design  of  the  Roman  Empire,  17;  his 
treatise  on  monarchy,  33 ;  on  the 
neglect  of  the  classic  authors,  58 ;  his 
theology,  329 ;  on  the  temporal  am- 
bition of  the  Popes,  328. 

Darnley,  his  marriage  with  Mary,  314; 
his  character,  315 ;  disgusts  his  wife, 
315 ;  takes  part  in  the  murder  of 
Rizzio,  315 ;  ill,  and  visited  by  Mary, 
317  ;  taken  to  Kirk-of-field,  318  ;  mur- 
dered, 318. 

D'Aubign6,  Theodore  Agrippa,  on  the 
origin  of  the  civil  wars  in  France, 
231. 

D'Aumale,  Due,  on  the  miUtary  talents 
of  Henry  IV.,  241. 

Davila,  exaggerates  the  influence  of  po- 
litical motives  on  the  Huguenot  nobles, 
224. 

Decretals,  Pseudo-Isidorian,  20. 

Deism,  its  rise  and  spread,  457. 

Denmark,  reformation  in,  148 ;  inter- 
vention of,  in  Germany,  359. 

Des  Cartes,  relation  of  his  system  to 
Protestantism,  452 ;  his  personal  his- 
tory, 453 ;  his  system  favored  by  the 
Jansenists,  453;  it  is  opposed  by  the 
Sorbonne  and  the  Jesuits,  453 ;  his 
books  placed  on  the  Index,  453. 


INDEX 


609 


De  Tocqueville,  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, 1 ;  on  the  influence  of  religion  on 
liberty  in  America,  434 ;  on  the  intel- 
lectual effects  of  skepticism,  455. 

D6vay,  Matthew,  the  Hungarian  re- 
former,  164. 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  mistress  of  Henry  II., 
221. 

Diaz,  Juan,  345. 

Dietrich,  Veit,  on  Luther's  prayers,  107. 

Dilettantism,  its  prevalence  in  Italy,  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  440. 

Disciphne,  "First  Book"  of,  303;  "Sec- 
ond Book  "  of,  304. 

Discoveries  and  inventions,  age  of,  9. 

Dollinger,  on  the  influence  of  Luther,  143. 

Dominicans,  rise  of  the  order  of  the,  25 ; 
their  strife  with  the   Jesuits,  355. 

Donatists,  laws  against  the,  194. 

Donauworth,  seized  by  Bavaria,  358. 

Dorner,  his  remark  on  Luther,  142. 

Dort,  Synod  of,  English  delegates  on  the, 
366;  its  creed,  399. 

Douay,  Jesuit  establishment  in,  351. 

Doumergue,  Prof.  C,  cited,  171. 

Drake,  Sir  Francis,  324. 

Dreux,  battle  of,  232. 

Du  Perron,  242. 

Duprat,  Chancellor,  212. 

Du  Tillet,  185. 

Dyer,  on  Servetus,  199. 

Eck,  at  the  Leipsic  disputation,  85; 
writes  against  Luther,  83. 

Eckart,  Master,  his  Pantheistic  tendency, 
54. 

Edinburgh,  treaty  of,  303. 

Edward  III.,  of  England,  33 ;  protects 
WickUffe,  50. 

Edward  VI.,  his  precocity,  278. 

Egmont,  his  character,  250 ;  his  mission 
to  Spain,  254  ;  his  cruelty  to  the  icono- 
clasts, 257  ;  his  execution,  260. 

Eldership,  revived  by  Calvin,  260. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  welcomed  to  the 
throne,  282 ;  how  treated  by  Paul 
IV.,  282 ;  her  conservatism  in  reli- 
gion, 282;  her  treatment  of  Roman 
Catholics,  283 ;  persecution  under, 
267 ;  her  imperious  treatment  of  her 
bishops,  295 ;  sends  aid  to  the  Scot- 
tish insurgents,  303  ;  her  matrimonial 
plans  for  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  313 ; 
refuses  to  guarantee  the  succession, 
314;  her  professed  indignation  at  the 
treatment  of  Mary,  323 ;  disposed  to 
restore  her  to  her  throne,  323 ;  com- 
pelled to  support  Murray  and  the 
lords,  323 ;  Catholic  combination 
against  her,  324. 


Emperors,  Roman,  favor  the  See  of 
Rome,   17. 

Empire,  German,  conflict  of  the  Papacy 
with  the,  21 ;  disadvantages  of,  in  the 
conflict,  22. 

Empire,  Roman,  supposed  to  be  restored 
by  Charlemagne,  19. 

England  disposed  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury to  check  Papal  aggressions,  33 ; 
monarchy,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  in, 
36 ;  revival  of  learning  in,  65 ;  jeal- 
ousy of  the  hierarchy  in,  273 ;  two 
parties  under  Henry  VIII.,  in,  275 ; 
rebellion  in  (1536),  276;  its  desultory 
conflict  with  Spain,  325 ;  defeats  the 
Armada,  325;  its  position  under  the 
Stuarts,  365 ;  subservience  to  Spain 
under  James  I.,  367 ;  its  influence 
under  Cromwell,  372 ;  origin  of  Deism 
in,  457. 

England,  the  Church  of,  framing  of  its 
articles  and  prayer-book,  278 ;  are  its 
articles  Calvinistic,  287 ;  its  opinion 
on  the  Eucharist,  289 ;  its  doctrine  of 
predestination,  287 ;  makes  the  Bible 
the  rule  of  faith,  389;  Calvin's  re- 
marks on,  178;  its  general  character, 
283 ;  its  relation  to  the  Protestant 
churches  abroad,  284;  its  friendship 
for  the  Swiss  churches,  284. 

England,  the  Reformation  in,  how  intro- 
duced, 271 ;  the  peculiarity  of,  271 ; 
less  prominence  of  its  leaders,  271 ; 
reaction  against  it  at  the  accession  of 
Mary,  279. 

Enzinas,  Jayme,  345. 

Episcopacy,  little  controversy  about  it 
among  the  first  Protestants,  284 ; 
Melancthon's  view  of,  284;  Cranmer's 
opinion,  284 ;    Lord  Bacon  on,  285. 

"Episcopal  system,"  in  Germany,  416. 

Episcopate,  rise  of  the,  13. 

Episcopius,  398. 

Erasmus,  at  Oxford,  65 ;  the  principal 
representative  of  Humanism,  66 ;  his 
popularity  and  fame,  66 ;  compared 
with  Voltaire,  66 ;  his  attainments, 
66 ;  compared  with  Budceus,  66 ;  his 
patrons  and  his  love  of  independence, 
67  ;  the  foe  of  superstition,  67 ;  his 
experience  of  monasticism,  67 ;  his 
warfare  with  monks,  67;  his  "Praise 
of  Folly,"  and  "Colloquies,"  67; 
offends  the  Franciscans,  68 ;  his  ha- 
tred of  Pharisaism,  68 ;  his  opinion 
of  creeds,  68  ;  favors  religious  liberty, 
68 ;  charged  with  heresy,  68 ;  his 
"Colloquies,"  condemned  by  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  69 ;  his  editions  of 
the   Fathers,    69 ;    his   edition   of   the 


510 


INDEX 


New  Testament,  and  commentaries 
69;  his  merits  estimated  by  Strauss, 
70;  inference  from  the  reception  of 
his  writings,  70;  on  Luther's  writings 
in  England,  270;  applauds  the  first 
movement  of  Luther,  112  ;  his  caution, 
112;  his  remark  to  the  Elector  Fred- 
eric, 112;  a  typical  latitudinarian, 
112;  prefers  Jerome  to  Augustine, 
112;  his  love  of  peace,  112;  irritated 
by  the  tone  of  Luther,  112 ;  his  quarrel 
with  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  113;  writes 
on  free-will  against  Luther,  113  ;  prog- 
ress of  his  alienation  from  Luther  and 
the  Reformation,  113;  his  description 
of  Farel,  183 ;  on  the  influence  of 
Protestantism  on  literature,  438. 

Erastianism,  420. 

Erastians,  in  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
369. 

Eric  XVI.,  King  of  Sweden,  154. 

Eucharist,  controversy  on,  between 
Lutherans  and  Swiss,  129  ;  history  of 
the  doctrine,  129 ;  Luther's  doctrine, 
129;  Zwingli's  doctrine,  130;  efforts 
to  heal  the  difference,  132 ;  confer- 
ence at  Marburg,  132 ;  mutual  mis- 
understanding  of  the  parties,  134  ;  Me- 
lancthon  abandons  the  Lutheran  doc- 
trine of  the,  140;  great  controverted 
topic  among  the  reformers,  289 ;  the 
different  views  of,  290;  opinion  of 
the  Church  of  England  on,  290 ;  Cran- 
mer's  view  of,  290;  Jewel's  view  of, 
291. 

Europe,  its  condition  after  the  reforming 
councils,  36. 

Evelyn,  on  the  court  of  Charles  II., 
374. 

Faber,  338. 

Fagius,  a  professor  at  Cambridge,  278. 

Farel,  his  character,  183  ;  preaches  Prot- 
estantism in  Geneva,  183 ;  how  de- 
scribed by  Erasmus,  183;  goes  to 
Brigonnet,  211. 

Ferdinand  I.,  becomes  King  of  Hungary, 
163;  faithful  to  the  Peace  of  Augs- 
burg, 357. 

Ferdinand  II.,  Emperor,  his  fanaticism, 
358. 

Ferrara,  Protestantism  in,  333. 

Feudal  system,  occasions  the  conflict  of 
the  Papacy  and  the  Empire,  22. 

Ficinus,  MarsiUus,  456;  his  philosophy, 
62. 

Flaminio,  333. 

Florence,  Protestantism  in,  333. 

Fontainebleau,  assembly  of  notables  at, 
225. 


Fontenay,  battle  of,  72. 
France,  the  Reformation  in,  emanated 
from  Humanism,  209 ;  two  parties  in 
the  court,  212;  its  disciples  protected 
by  Margaret,  Queen  of  Navarre,  213 ; 
doubtful  character  of  its  prospects, 
214  ;  how  regarded  by  Henry  II.,  219  ; 
its  progress  in  his  reign,  219  ;  monarchy 
in  the  fifteenth  century  in,  36 ;  Rome, 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation 
offered  to  its  choice,  215 ;  it  supports 
Philip  the  Fair  against  Boniface  VIII., 
31 ;  what  it  acquired  by  the  Peace  of 
Westphaha,  365 ;  its  literature  in  the 
age  of  Louis  XIV.,  442 ;  polity  of  the 
Huguenot  churches  in,  419  ;  effect  of 
the  persecution  of  the  Huguenots  on, 
383 ;  effect  of  rehgious  persecution 
on,  457. 

Francis  I.,  he  abandons  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  40 ;  his  struggle  with  Charles 
v.,  41 ;  not  chosen  emperor,  and  why, 
92 ;  grounds  of  his  disagreement  with 
Charles  V.,  92  ;  his  strength  compared 
with  that  of  Charles,  92 ;  captured  at 
Pa  via,  102 ;  labors  to  prevent  the 
union  of  Protestants  and  Catholics  in 
Germany,  138 ;  his  vacillation  with 
regard  to  reform,  216 ;  its  conse- 
quences, 217;  boasts  of  the  religious 
unity  of  France,  217 ;  enraged  by  the 
placards,  217 ;  invites  Melancthon  to 
Paris,  217 ;  the  patron  of  letters,  209  ; 
establishes  the  College  of  the  Three 
languages,  213  ;  opposes  the  Sorbonne 
and  Parliament,  213 ;  seeks  to  con- 
ciliate the  clergy,  214;  imprisons 
Beda,  214 ;  approaches  nearer  to  the 
Protestants,  215 ;  sanctions  the  creed 
of  the  Sorbonne,  218 ;  opposes  the 
union  of  CathoUcs  and  Protestants, 
336. 

Francis  II.,  his  accession,  222 ;  subject  to 
the  Guises,  222 ;  death  of,  227. 

Francis  of  Sickingen,  his  defeat  and 
death,  116. 

Franciscans,  rise  of  the  order  of  the,  25 ; 
offended  by  Erasmus,  68. 

Franks,  alliance  of  the  Papacy  with,  18 ; 
their  protection  to  Boniface,  19. 

Frederic  Barbarossa,  his  submission  to 
Pope  Alexander  III.,  24. 

Frederic  I.,  of  Denmark,  his  policy  re- 
specting Protestantism,  150. 

Frederic  II.,  the  Emperor,  329  ;  his  rela- 
tion to  Innocent  III.,  25. 

Frederic  V.,  Elector  Palatine,  made  King 
of  Bohemia,  359 ;    robbed  of  the  elec- 
torate, 360. 
I  Frederic,  Elector  of  Saxony,  founds  the 


INDEX 


611 


University  of  Wittenberg,  64;  the 
imperial  office  offered  to,  91 ;  why  de- 
clined by,  91 ;  regent  in  North  Ger- 
many, 93  ;  disposed  to  protect  Luther, 
93 ;  warns  Luther  not  to  leave  the 
Wartburg,  98. 

Friends  of  God,  54. 

Frobenius,  72. 

Froude,  his  estimate  of  Henry  VIII., 
277 ;  on  the  effect  of  the  Reformation 
in  Scotland,  450. 

Galileo,  the  persecution  of,  440. 

Gallicanism,  its  theory  of  the  Papacy, 
35 ;  where  it  places  infallibility,  35 ; 
its  type  of  reform,  48;  four  proposi- 
tions of,  380. 

Gardiner,  renounces  the  doctrine  of  the 
king's  supremacy,  280. 

Geneva,  how  governed  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  182 ;  recognized  as  a  city  of  the 
empire,  182 ;  under  the  Dukes  of 
Savoy,  182;  freed  from  Savoy,  182; 
divided  into  two  parties,  182 ;  drives 
out  the  bishop  and  becomes  Protes- 
tant, 182 ;  its  discontent  with  the 
Protestant  regime,  184 ;  low  state  of 
morals  in,  184 ;  banishes  Calvin  and 
the  other  preachers,  186 ;  recalls  Cal- 
vin, 188 ;  system  established  by  Calvin 
in,  190;  its  severity,  193;  a  religious 
center  under  Calvin,  203 ;  academy 
of,  204 ;  delivered  from  faction,  204 ; 
an  asylum  for  persecuted  Frenchmen, 
219  ;  sends  books  and  colporteurs  into 
France,  219  ;  how  regarded  by  Hugue- 
not martyrs,  221. 

Genin,  on  Margaret  of  Navarre,  213. 

Gentili,  402. 

George,  Duke  of  Saxony,  86. 

German  nations,  their  ready  reception  of 
Christianity,  7  ;  the  Christianity  which 
they  received,  7. 

Germany,  Papal  aggressions  upon,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  32;  influence  of 
Mystics  in,  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
54 ;  character  of  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing in,  63  ;  character  of  its  people,  72  ; 
their  reception  of  the  Gospel,  73;  its 
early  resistance  of  the  clergy,  73 ;  its 
religion  described  by  Tacitus,  72 ; 
Mysticism  in,  72;  why  it  gave  birth 
to  the  Reformation,  73 ;  its  political 
condition  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Reformation,  90 ;  the  electoral  system 
in,  90;  power  of  the  Diet,  90;  private 
wars,  90;  efforts  under  Maximilian 
to  improve  the  constitution,  90;  their 
result,  90  ;  ferment  and  discord,  in,  91  ; 
Charles    V.,    elected   emperor   of,    91 ; 


how  regarded  by  Charles  V.,  93 ;  its 
complaints  against  Pope  Julius  II., 
38. 

Germany,  the  Reformation  in.  Diet  of 
Spires  (1526)  refuses  to  stifle  it,  103; 
alliance  of  Catholic  princes  and  bishops 
at  Ratisbon  to  check  it,  102 ;  sprang 
from  the  people,  356. 

"German  theology,"  Luther's  estimate 
of  it,  55. 

Gerson,  425;  his  theory  of  the  Episco- 
pate, 35. 

Ghent,  pacification  of,  262. 

Gibbon,  on  the  influence  of  Erasmus,  112. 

Gladstone,  on  Church  and  State,  422. 

Gomarus,  his  theology,  398. 

Granvelle,  Bishop  of  Arras,  his  charac- 
ter, 250. 

Greek  Church,  more  and  more  distinct 
from  the  Latin,  18. 

Gregorovius,  on  the  spirit  of  national- 
ism, 26. 

Gregory  I.,  he  sends  missionaries  to  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  19 ;  on  the  reading  of 
the  Bible  by  the  laity,  447. 

Gregory  VII.,  supported  by  divisions  in 
Germany,  24. 

Gregory  IX.,  Pope,  his  vindictiveness 
towards  Frederic  II.,  23. 

Gregory  X.,  Pope,  his  direction  to  the 
German  Electors,  24. 

Gregory  XVI.,  Pope,  437. 

Grimm,  on  the  religion  of  the  Germans, 
72. 

Grindal,  his  opinion  on  the  use  of  vest- 
ments by  the  clergy,  293. 

Grotius,  on  the  Atonement,  399 ;  his 
efforts  for  the  reunion  of  Protestants 
and  Catholics,  406  ;  on  the  Decalogue, 
406 ;   died  a  Protestant,  407. 

Gualter,  his  friendship  with  English 
divines,  284. 

Guicciardini,  on  Leo  X.,  39. 

Guise,  Claude  of,  222. 

Guise,  the  family  of,  their  history,  222 ; 
their  control  over  Francis  II.,  222; 
their  connection  with  Diana  of  Poi- 
tiers, 223  ;  dissatisfaction  of  the  Bour- 
bons and  Chatillons  with,  223. 

Guise,  Charles,  Cardinal  of,  222. 

Guise,  Duke  Francis  of,  222 ;  avenges 
the  Amboise  conspiracy,  225 ;  one  of 
Triumvirate,  228 ;  perpetrates  the 
massacre  of  Vassy,  230 ;  received  in 
Paris  with  acclaim,  230  ;  assassinated, 
232 ;  his  assassination  condemned  by 
Calvin,  232. 

Guise,  Henry  of,  plots  the  assassination 
of  Coligny,  236 ;  organizes  the  Catho- 
hc  League,  239. 


512 


INDEX 


Guizot,  his  view  of  the  Reformation,  4; 
his  judgment  respecting  Calvin  and 
Servetus,  201. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  his  intervention  in 
Germany,  362 ;  how  regarded  by 
Brandenburg  and  Saxony,  362 ;  his 
aims,  362 ;  his  death  at  Lutzen,  362  ; 
his  relations  to  Richelieu,  363. 

Hadrian  IV  ,  his  bull  with  regard  to  Ire- 
land, 325. 

Hallam,  on  the  anti-hierarchical  litera- 
ture, 27;  on  Luther's  bad  Latin,  110; 
on  Cranmer,  275 ;  on  the  Hampton 
Court  Conference,  367. 

Hamilton,  Patrick,  300. 

Hamilton,  Sir  WilUam,  116. 

Hampton  Court  Conference,  367. 

Hare,  on  the  character  and  position  of 
Luther,  74. 

Hazlitt,  on  the  Elizabethan  authors, 
449. 

Heeren,  433. 

Hefele,  on  the  massacre  of  the  Albi- 
genses,  46;  his  criticism  of  Llorente, 
342. 

Hegel,  on  Luther's  Bible,  99 ;  on  the 
German  Reformation,  73. 

Heilbronn,  Treaty  of,  363. 

Henry,  the  Deacon,  45. 

Henry  II.,  of  France,  his  attitude 
towards  Protestantism,  219 ;  engages 
in  pefsecution,  220 ;  his  death,  220. 

Henry  III.,  of  France,  his  account  of  the 
massacre    of    St.    Bartholomew,    237, 

238  ;   his  character,  239  ;   makes  peace 
with   the   Huguenots   and   Politiques, 

239  ;   assassinates  the  Guises,  240 ;   his 
assassination,  240. 

Henry  III.,  of  Germany,  he  intervenes 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Papacy,  21. 

Henry  IV.,  of  France,  sallies  forth  (Prince 
of  Navarre)  with  Coligny  from  Ro- 
chelle,  234 ;  excommunicated  by 
Sixtus  v.,  240;  his  war  with  the 
League,  241 ;  wins  the  battle  of  Ivry, 
241 ;  his  contest  with  Alexander  of 
Parma,  241  ;  his  abjuration,  242 ; 
effects  of  it,  243 ;  his  administration, 
243 ;  his  foreign  policy,  244 ;  grants 
the  Edict  of  Nantes,  244 ;  his  acces- 
sion a  blow  to  the  Catholic  reaction, 
244 ;  his  plans  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  377. 

Henry  IV.,  of  Germany,  weakened  by 
divisions  in  Germany,  23 ;  at  Canossa, 
23. 

Henry  VII.,  of  England,  36. 

Henry  VIII.,  his  controversy  with 
Luther,   109;    tone  of  his  book,   110; 


Luther's  letter  of  apology  to.  111  ; 
his  application  for  a  divorce,  272 ; 
made  head  of  the  Church  of  England. 
274 ;  his  divorce  and  marriage  with 
Anne  Boleyn,  273 ;  his  divorce  de- 
creed by  Cranmer,  274 ;  publishes  the 
Bible  in  English,  275  ;  proclaims  the 
ten  articles,  276 ;  his  persecution  of 
Protestants,  276 ;  executes  Anne 
Boleyn,  276  ;  his  marriage  with  Anna 
of  Cleves,  276 ;  his  character,  277 ; 
effect  of  his  death  on  reUgious  parties, 
277. 

Herbert,  Lord,  457. 

Herzog,  on  the  Waldenses,  47. 

Hesse,  plan  for  the  Church  constitution 
of,  414. 

Hierarchy,  attacked  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  34 ;  its  government  dis- 
carded by  the  Reformers,  410. 

High  commission,  court  of,  282. 

Hildebrand,  his  reforming  plan,  21. 

Hincmar,  of  Rheims,  humbled  by  Nicho- 
las I.,  21. 

History,  modern,  most  prominent  events 
of,  1. 

Holland,  benefit  of  the  Reformation  to, 
450. 

Homberg,  synod  of,  414. 

Hoogstraten,  his  persecution  of  Reuch- 
hn,  63. 

Hooker,  on  the  validity  of  Presbyterian 
ordination,  285 ;  contrasted  with 
Whitgift,  289;  his  treatise,  296;  on 
Church  and  State,  296,  420. 

Hooper,  had  resided  at  Zurich,  292; 
is  imprisoned,  292;  his  martyrdom, 
280. 

Horn,  his  execution,  260. 

Hosack,  on  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  321. 

Huguenots,  persecution  of,  under  Henry 
II.,  220;  their  number  in  1558,  220; 
effect  of  persecution  on,  220 ;  become 
a  political  party,  221  ;  a  measure  of 
toleration  granted  them  (1562),  229; 
their  union  with  the  great  nobles,  223  ; 
their  long  patience,  224  ;  plot  for  their 
destruction  at  Orleans,  226 ;  origin  of 
the  name,  227 ;  belonged  to  what 
classes,  227  ;  iconoclasm  by  the, 
231  ;  acted  in  self-defense  in  the  civil 
wars,  231  ;  provoked  to  resistance  by 
illegal  violence,  231 ;  anticipate  an 
attack  by  taking  up  arms,  232  ;  their 
fortitude  after  Jarnac  and  Moncon- 
tour,  234  ;  how  affected  by  the  slaugh- 
ter of  St.  Bartholomew,  239  ;  after  the 
abjuration  of  Henry  IV.,  243;  pro- 
tected by  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  244; 
becomes  a  defensive  party,  244 ;    in- 


INDEX 


513 


surrection   of    (1621),    378;     persecu- 
tion of,  by  Louis  XIV.,  382. 
Humanism,  in  Italy,  its  lack  of  heroism, 

330;   its  polemical  ferocity,  331 ;   how 

fostered  in  France,  210. 
Humanists,  they  rally  to  defend  Reuch- 

lin,  their  relation  to  the  Universities, 

64. 
Hume,  on  the  cause  of  the  Reformation, 

3. 
Hungary,    spread    of    Protestantism    in, 

163 ;    civil   war  in,    164 ;    Eucharistic 

strife  in,   164. 
Himt,  on   the  Calvinism  of  the  English 

Reformers,  287. 
Huntley,  Earl  of,  305. 
Huss,   by  whom  influenced,  51 ;    works 

on,   50;    his  spirit  and  opinions,   51; 

Luther's    declaration    respecting,    86 ; 

safe-conduct    of,    51 ;     his    execution, 

51 ;   effect  of  it  in  Bohemia,  154. 
Hussites,  crusades  against  the,  52. 
Hutchinson,    Mrs.,    on    the    doctrine    of 

Predestination,  366. 
Hutten,   he  aids   Reuchlin,   64 ;    one  of 

the  authors  of  the  Epist.  Obsc.  Viro- 

rum,  64. 
Hymns,    Luther's,    107,    180;    Calvin's, 

180. 

Iceland,  Reformation  in,  152. 

Iconoclasm  in  Scotland,  303 ;  by  the 
Huguenots,  231 ;  in  the  Netherlands, 
257  ;   England  spared  from,  298. 

"Imitation  of  Christ,"  character  of  it, 
55. 

Independents,  their  rise  and  tenets, 
296 ;  in  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
369 ;  attain  to  power,  370 ;  their 
polity  in  New  England,  426. 

Index  Prohibitorius,  344,  443 ;  authors 
in  the,  443. 

Indulgence,  declaration  of,  374. 

Indulgences,  history  of,  79 ;  doctrine  of 
Aquinas  respecting,  79 ;  connected 
with  the  treasury  of  supererogatory 
merits,  by  Aquinas  and  Alexander  of 
Hales,  80;  doctrine  of  Pope  Sixtus 
IV.,  80;  how  sold  by  Tetzel,  80; 
Luther's  protest  against  the  trade  in, 
81 ;  his  doctrine  of,  81  ;  bull  of  Leo 
X.  respecting,  84 ;  Zwingli  preaches 
against  the  sale  of,  122. 

Innocent  III.,  carries  the  Papal  power 
to  its  height,  24;  his  idea  of  a  Papal 
theocracy,  24 ;  on  the  relation  of  the 
Church  to  the  State,  24 ;  raises  up, 
and  excommunicates  Otho  IV.,  25; 
elevates  Frederic  II.,  25 ;  reduces 
John  of  England   to  submission,   25 ; 


his  claims,  25 ;  his  legates,  25 ;  sup- 
ported by  the  mendicant  orders,  25 ; 
his  crusade  against  the  Albigenses,  46 ; 
for  the  enforcement  of  uniformity, 
194. 

Innocent  VIII.,  Pope,  his  character, 
37. 

Innocent  X.,  his  controversy  with  Louis 
XIV.,  379. 

Inquisition  used  against  the  Albigenses, 
46 ;  its  form  in  the  Netherlands,  255  ; 
its  effect,  255 ;  reorganized  in  Italy, 
341 ;    its  vigilance  in  Spain,  346. 

Inquisitors,  origin  of  the  term,  194. 

Interim,  Leipsic,  143;  opposed  by  Cal- 
vin, 187. 

Intolerance,  history  of,  193 ;  in  the  Ro- 
man Empire,  194;  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  194;  influence  of  the  Mosaic 
legislation  on,  195 ;  not  favored  by 
Zwingli,  194 ;  expressions  of  Luther 
against,  195 ;  advocated  by  Calvin, 
195 ;  in  England  under  Elizabeth, 
267 ;  opposed  by  William  of  Orange, 
267 ;  exercised  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries, 435  ;  incongruous  with  the 
genius  of  Protestantism,  437 ;  how  far 
CathoUcs  are  responsible  for,  437. 

Ireland,  Protestantism  in,  325 ;  Prot- 
estant hierarchy  established  in,  326; 
effect  of  the  Catholic  reaction  on, 
326 ;  Lord  Bacon's  advice  respecting, 
326. 

Irenseus,  on  the  visible  Church,  14. 

Italy,  revival  of  learning  in,  58 ;  char- 
acter of  the  revival  of  learning  in,  61 ; 
religion  in,  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
62 ;  tone  of  ethical  feeling  in,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  62 ;  influence  of  its 
culture  in  France,  209 ;  its  condition 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  327  ;  effect  of 
cla.ssical  studies  in,  330 ;  character  of 
Humanists  in,  330 ;  how  changed  in- 
tellectually after  the  Reformation, 
349  ;  interest  in  natural  science  springs 
up  in,  349 ;  effect  of  the  Catholic  re- 
action on,  349 ;  Antitrinitarians  in, 
402. 

Jacob,  on  the  origin  of  the  Episcopate, 
13. 

Jagellon,  house  of,  163. 

James  V.,  of  Scotland,  Protestant  mar- 
tyrs in  his  reign,  300. 

James  I.,  of  England,  his  birth,  316 ; 
crowned  at  Stirling,  321 ;  his  reign, 
365 ;  his  treatment  of  the  Puritans, 
366 ;  at  the  Hampton  Court  Confer- 
ence, 367  ;  sends  delegates  to  the  Sy 
nod    of    Dort,    366;     his    attempt    to 


514 


INDEX 


impose  Episcopacy  on  the  Scottish 
Church,  368;  his  opinion  of  Laud, 
368. 

James  II.,  his  arbitrary  principles,  375; 
his  court  of  high  commission,  375  ;  his 
declaration  for  liberty  of  conscience, 
375  ;   loses  his  crown,  375. 

Jansenism,  origin  of,  380. 

Jansenists,  persecution  of  them,  382 ; 
on  the  reading  of  the  Bible  by  the 
laity,  447. 

Jansenius,  381. 

Jeffries,  Judge,  445. 

Jerome,  of  Prague,  his  execution,  51. 

Jesuits,  order  of,  its  origin,  337 ;  its 
organization,  339  ;  its  influence,  339  ; 
its  doctrine  of  regicide,  425 ;  its  edu- 
cational influence,  350;  result  of  its 
efforts  against  Protestantism,  351 ; 
its  influence  in  France,  351 ;  at  Douay, 
351 ;  in  Sweden,  351 ;  in  Austria,  357  ; 
effect  of  its  training  on  the  intellect, 
445 ;  decay  of  its  zeal,  381 ;  its  lax 
ethical  maxims,  381 ;  its  strife  with 
the  Dominicans,  355 ;  its  suppression, 
436. 

Jesuitism,  of  Loyola,  not  that  of  the 
"Provincial  Letters,"  339. 

Jewel,  his  opinion  on  the  Eucharist,  291. 

John,  Don,  of  Austria,  his  government  in 
the  Netherlands,  262 ;   his  death,  262. 

John  of  Damascus,  teaches  transub- 
stantiation,   129. 

John,  King  of  England,  hmnbled  by  In- 
nocent III.,  25. 

John  of  Paris,  maintains  the  rights  of 
the  civil  authority,  33. 

John  XXII.,  his  treatment  of  the  Em- 
peror Louis  of  Bavaria,  32 ;  charged 
with  heresy  by  the  Minorites,  34. 

John  XXIII.,  attempts  to  control  the 
Council  of  Pisa,  35. 

John  of  Savoy,  bishop  of  Geneva,  182. 

John,  Elector  of  Saxony,  his  noble  con- 
duct at  Augsburg  (1530),  105. 

John  III.,  king  of  Sweden,  154. 

John  Frederic,  Elector,  captured  at 
Miihlberg,   143 ;    released,   146. 

John  of  Zdpolya,  164. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  on  convocation  in 
the  English  Church,  424. 

Jonas,  Justus,  290. 

Jortin,  his  Life  of  Erasmus,  66. 

Julius  II.,  Pope,  his  character,  38;  com- 
plaints of  Germany  against,  38  ;  covert 
reference  to,  in  the  "Colloquies"  of 
Erasmus,  68. 

Julius  III.,  Pope,  favorable  to  Charles 
v.,  144. 

Jus  Reformandi,   granted   in   the   Peace 


of  Augsburg,  146;  how  modified  in 
the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  365. 
Justification,  departure  from  the  Pauline 
doctrine  of,  13  ;  spread  in  Italy  of  the 
Protestant  doctrine  of,  333 ;  Protes- 
tant doctrine  of,  in  Spain,  346 ;  first 
point  of  controversy  between  Catho- 
lics and  Protestants,  387  ;  Protestant 
doctrine  of,  388 ;  Roman  Catholic 
doctrine  of,  390. 

Kampschulte,  his  Life  of  Calvin,  166. 

Keble,  John,  his  edition  of  Hooker,  285. 

Kempis,  Thomas  k,  his  "Imitation  of 
Christ, "  55. 

Kepler,  his  view  of  Astrology,  3. 

Knox,  John,  returns  to  Scotland  (1559), 
301 ;  his  early  life,  301 ;  in  the  castle 
of  St.  Andrews,  301 ;  called  to  preach, 
301 ;  a  captive  in  France,  301 ; 
preaches  in  North  England,  302 ;  de- 
clines a  bishopric  in  England,  302;  at 
Frankfort,  302;  at  Geneva,  302;  his 
book  on  the  "Regimen  of  Women," 
302;  returns  to  Scotland  (1555),  302; 
preaches  against  idolatry,  302 ;  de- 
tested by  Elizabeth,  303  ;  his  disagree- 
ment with  the  lords,  304 ;  his  opposi- 
tion to  the  Queen's  mass,  306;  his 
interview  with  her,  306 ;  his  debate 
with  her  on  the  limits  of  civil  obedi- 
ence, 308 ;  preaches  against  dancing 
at  Holyrood,  309 ;  another  interview 
with  Mary,  309 ;  further  discussion 
with  her,  310;  preaches  against  her 
projected  marriage,  311  ;  she  sum- 
mons him  to  her  presence,  311  ;  cited 
before  the  privy  council,  312;  his 
description  of  the  scene,  312 ;  tem- 
porarj-^  breach  with  Murray,  312;  his 
public  praj'er  for  the  Queen,  312;  no 
advocate  of  toleration,  313 ;  his  form 
of  worship,  322 ;    his  last  days,  323. 

La  Chaise,  382. 

Laical  spirit,  how  manifested  before  the 

Reformation,  70. 
Lainez,    advocates  popular  sovereignty, 

425. 
Lambert,    his    Church    constitution    for 

Hesse,  414;    Luther's  judgment  of  it, 

415. 
Lang,  Andrew,  on  Mary  of  Scotland,  321. 
Lang,   August,    on   Calvin's   conversion, 

170. 
Languages,  rise  of  the  national,  27. 
Langland,  William,  his  poem,  28. 
La  Renaudie,  225. 
Lasco,  John  k,  his  career,  and  work  in 

Poland,  162. 


INDEX 


515 


Lateral!,  5th  Council  of  the,  61. 

Latimer,  his  martyrdom,  280. 

Laud,  maintains  a  jure  divino  Episco- 
pacy, 285 ;  his  policy,  368  ;  James  I. '.s 
opinion  of,  368;  his  censorship  of  the 
press,  444. 

Laurent,  his  view  of  the  Reformation,  6  ; 
on  the  state  of  religion  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  6. 

Law,  International,  progress  of  the  sci- 
ence of,  454. 

Law,  T.  G.,  cited,  321. 

Lawrence,  Archbishop,  on  the  Anglican 
articles,  286. 

League,  Catholic,  in  France,  organized, 
239  ;  it  commences  war,  239  ;  refuses 
to  acknowledge  Henry  IV.,  240;  war 
with  Henry  IV.,  241  ;  its  relations  to 
Spain,  241 ;  Catholic,  in  Germany, 
(1538),  137;  Catholic,  in  Germany, 
(1609),  358. 

League  of  Smalcald,  formed,  136 ;  weak- 
ened by  discord,  139. 

Learning,  the  revival  of,  begins  in  Italy, 
57  ;  influence  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and 
Boccaccio  on,  58. 

Lecky,  on  religious  persecution,  196. 

Lefevre,  his  writings,  210;  his  doctrines, 
210;  flies  to  Strasburg,  211;  on 
geographical  discoveries  and  reform, 
74. 

Legates,  sent  out  by  Innocent  III.,  25. 

Legists,  their  anti-hierarchical  spirit,  30 ; 
the  allies  of  monarchy,  30. 

Leibnitz,  his  efforts  for  the  reunion  of 
churches,  407  ;  his  correspondence  with 
Landgrave  Ernest,  and  with  Bossuet, 
407 ;  his  remedy  for  divisions,  407 ; 
his  ecclesiastical  position,  408. 

Leipsic,  Disputation  at,  85 ;  its  effect  on 
Luther,  86. 

Leo  I.,  his  influence  on  the  council  of 
Chalcedon,  16 ;  founds  the  Roman 
primacy  on  succession  from  Peter,  17  ; 
his  character,  17. 

Leo  X.,  calls  the  Reformation  a  quarrel 
of  monks,  3;  Luther's  letter  to  him, 
87  ;  excommunicates  Luther,  88  ;  his 
bull  on  the  subject  of  indulgences,  84  ; 
his  opposition  to  the  election  of  Charles 
v.,  98;  his  agreement  with  him,  98; 
insists  on  the  burning  of  heretics,  195  ; 
his  character,  38 ;  Sarpi  on,  38 ;  Pal- 
lavicini  on,  39  ;  Muratori  on,  39  ;  Guic- 
ciardini  on,  39 ;  Roscoe  on,  39. 

Leo,  H.,  his  view  of  the  Reformation,  3. 

Le  Tellier,  father,  382,  383. 

Leyden,  siege  of,  261 ;  the  Pilgrim  church 
of,  371. 

L 'Hospital,  favors  toleration,  228. 


Liberty,  religious,  favored  by  Erasmus, 
68;  see  "Intolerance." 

Libertines,  the  party  of,  at  Geneva,  192; 
their  strength  when  Servetus  was 
tried,  200;  finally  crushed  by  Calvin, 
202. 

Lightfoot,  J.,  369. 

Lightfoot,  J.  B.,  on  the  origin  of  the 
Episcopate,  13. 

Lingard,  on  Cranmer,  281. 

Literature,  character  of  the  vernacular, 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  27 ;  its  decline  in 
Spain,  438;  in  Italy,  439;  English, 
in  the  Elizabethan  age,  448. 

Littr6,  on  the  word  "Huguenot,"  227. 

Livonia,  Protestantism  in,  161. 

Llorente,  his  history  of  the  Inquisition, 
342;    Hefele's  criticism  of,  342. 

Lollards,  in  England  before  the  Reforma- 
tion, 270 ;  listen  to  John  Knox,  270. 

Lombards,  they  threaten  Rome,  19. 

Longjumeau,  peace  of,  232. 

Lope  de  Vega,  438. 

Lords  of  the  congregation,  determine  to 
stop  persecution,  302 ;  refuse  to  devote 
church  property  to  schools,  etc.,  304. 

Lorenzo  II.,  of  Florence,  221. 

Lorraine,  Cardinal  Charles  of,  his  reasons 
for  desiring  a  colloquy  at  Poissy,  228. 

Lothair  II.,  disciplined^by  Nicholas  I.,  20. 

Louis  of  Bavaria,  how  treated  by  John 
XXII.,  32. 

Louis  de  Berquin,  his  death,  214. 

Louis,  Count  of  Nassau,  255;  defeated 
and  slain,  261. 

Louis  II.,  King  of  Hungary,  his  death,  163. 

Louis  IX.,  intercedes  for  Frederic  II.,  23. 

Louis  XIV.,  his  alliance  with  Charles  II., 
374 ;  his  aims,  379 ;  his  controversy 
with  Innocent  X.,  379;  supported  by 
the  French  clergy  (1682),  380;  agree- 
ment with  Innocent  XII.,  380;  his 
persecution  of  the  Huguenots,  382 ; 
under  the  influence  of  La  Chaise,  382 ; 
revokes  the  edict  of  Nantes,  383  ;  suc- 
cess and  ultimate  failure  of  his  foreign 
policy,  383. 

Louisa,  of  Savoy,  212. 

Loyola,  Ignatius,  his  history,  337 ;  his 
"Spiritual  Exercises,"  339. 

Liibeck,  the  Reformation  in,  151. 

Luther,  message  of  Maximilian  I.  re- 
specting, 41 ;  on  the  opinions  of  Wes- 
sel,  52 ;  a  student  of  Occam,  61 ;  his 
doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Supper  sug- 
gested by  D'Ailly,  61 ;  the^ero  of  the 
Reforr.iation,  73  ;  his  birth  and  parent- 
age, 74 ;  .studies  at  Magdeburg, 
Eisenach,  Erfurt,  75 ;  enters  the 
convent   at    Erfurt,    75 ;    his    motive. 


516 


INDEX 


75 ;  made  professor  at  Wittenberg, 
77 ;  liis  studies  and  growing  reputa- 
tion, 77  ;  his  religious  experience,  78 ; 
aided  by  Staupitz,  77 ;  studies  Augus- 
tine and  Tauler,  77 ;  sees  that  justifi- 
cation is  by  faith,  78 ;  visits  Rome, 
78  ;  his  delight  in  the  Bible,  78 ;  grad- 
ual progress  of  his  mind,  78  ;  preaches 
against  Tetzel,  79 ;  posts  his  ninety- 
five  Theses,  79 ;  their  contents,  79 ; 
conscientious  in  his  movement,  81  ; 
had  no  thought  of  renouncing  the  Pope 
or  the  Church,  81 ;  commotion  caused 
by  his  Theses,  82;  rephes  to  the  at- 
tacks of  Prierias,  Tetzel,  and  Eck, 
83 ;  is  summoned  to  Rome,  83 ;  in- 
terviews with  Cajetan  at  Augsburg, 
83  ;  declines  to  retract  his  declarations, 
84 ;  ajjpeals  to  the  Pope,  better  in- 
formed, 84 ;  his  doctrine  denied  in  a 
bull  of  Leo  X.,  84 ;  appeals  from  the 
Pope  to  a  general  council,  84 ;  con- 
cludes a  truce  with  Miltitz,  84 ;  takes 
part  in  the  Leipsic  Disputation,  84 ; 
accompanied  by  Melancthon,  84;  his 
geniality  and  humor,  85 ;  his  declara- 
tions at  Leipsic,  86 ;  how  influenced 
by  the  disputation,  86 ;  he  appeals  to 
the  laity ;  his  address  to  the  nobles, 
86 ;  strikes  at  the  distinction  between 
layman  and  priest,  87 ;  his  treatise 
on  the  Babylonian  captivity  of  the 
Church,  87 ;  attacks  transubstantia- 
tion,  87;  his  letter  to  Leo  X.,  87  ;  his 
sermon  on  the  freedom  of  a  Christian 
man,  88 ;  his  mind  in  a  state  of  tran- 
sition in  respect  to  Papal  and  Church 
authority,  88 ;  excommunicated,  88 
burns  the  Bull,  89 ;  political  sym- 
pathy with,  89 ;  literary  support  of 
89 ;  seconded  by  Ulrich  Von  Hutten 
89 ;  protected  by  Frederic  the  Wise 
93 ;  summoned  to  the  Diet  of  Worms 
94 ;  his  journey,  95 ;  appears  before 
the  Diet,  96 ;  why  he  asked  for  delay 
96 ;  refuses  to  recant,  96 ;  decree 
against  him,  97 ;  motives  of  it,  98 
under  the  ban  of  the  Church  and  the 
empire,  98 ;  in  the  Wartburg,  98 ; 
translates  the  New  Testament,  99 ; 
character  of  his  translation  of  the 
Bible,  99 ;  returns  to  Wittenberg, 
100 ;  quells  the  disorders  there,  101  ; 
his  conservatism  with  regard  to  rites, 
100;  his  reply  to  the  warning  of  the 
elector,  101  ;  his  herculean  labors, 
101 ;  his  rapid  composition,  101 ;  his 
domestic  character,  108 ;  his  opposi- 
tion to  armed  resistance,  104 ;  at  Co- 
burg,  105;  his  letters  from  there,  105; 


encourages  Melancthon,  107;  his 
prayers,  107 ;  on  ceremonies,  108 ; 
his  marriage,  108 ;  commotion  caused 
by  it,  108  ;  his  controversy  with  Henry 
VIII.,  109 ;  his  vehemence,  109 ;  his 
letter  of  apology  to  Henry  VIII.,  Ill ; 
his  relations  to  Erasmus,  111;  his 
opinion  of  Jerome  and  Augustine, 
112;  irritates  Erasmus,  112;  con- 
troversy with  him  on  the  will,  113; 
his  relations  with  him  afterwards,  113 ; 
how  far  right  in  his  judgments  of 
Erasmus,  115;  easily  misrepresented, 
and  why,  116;  on  the  peasants'  war, 
116;  contrasted  with  Zwingli,  126; 
a  man  of  the  people,  127  ;  but  stands 
aloof  from  politics,  127;  preceded 
Zwingli  in  breaking  with  the  Papacy, 
128 ;  his  doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per, 129 ;  his  hostility  to  the  Zwin- 
glian  doctrine,  130 ;  grounds  of  it,  131  ; 
derives  arguments  from  Occam,  132; 
at  the  conference  at  Marburg,  132; 
softened  feeling  towards  the  ZwLn- 
glians,  133 ;  renews  his  attack  upon 
them,  134 ;  waives  his  opposition  to 
armed  resistance,  136  ;  his  death,  139  ; 
his  last  days,  139 ;  his  conflict  with 
the  jurists,  140 ;  his  relations  to  Me- 
lancthon, 140 ;  his  power  and  influ- 
ence, 142 ;  remarks  of  Dorncr  and 
Dollinger  on,  142 ;  his  letter  to  Polish 
Lutherans,  161 ;  Calvin  compared 
with,  179;  Calvin's  remarks  on,  187; 
his  opinion  of  Calvin's  letter  to  Sado- 
let,  189 ;  on  the  sermons  of  Huss,  51 ; 
his  hymn  on  the  martyrs  of  Brussels, 
247 ;  reception  of  his  writings  in  Eng- 
land, 271 ;  his  writings  circulated  in 
Italy,  331;  in  Spain,  345;  his  com- 
mentary on  the  Galatians,  389 ;  his 
catechisms,  413;  on  the  Synod  of 
Romberg,  415 ;  on  the  nature  of 
laws,  415 ;  on  the  observance  of 
Sunday,  406 ;  on  Aristotle,  451 ;  his 
criticism  of  the  canon,  458. 

Lutheranism,  not  suited  to  France,  218. 

Lutherans,  effect  of  their  hostility  to 
Calvinism  on  the,  357. 

Lutzen,  battle  of,  362. 

Macaulay,  on  Cranmer,  275 ;  on  Church 
and  State,  423 ;  his  comparison  of 
Catholic  and  Protestant  nations,  430. 

Macchiavelli,  his  "Prince,"  63. 

Mackintosh,  on  Henry  VIII.,  277. 

Madrid,  Peace  of  (1526),  102. 

Magdeburg,  resists  the  Interim  and  the 
Emperor,  144. 

Mair,  John,  301. 


INDEX 


617 


Manicheans,  45  ;   laws  against.  194. 

Marburg,  conference  at,  132. 

Margaret,  Queen  of  Navarre,  her  court 
\'isited  by  Calvin,  172;  her  m}\stical 
and  reformatory  tendencies,  212;  her 
writings,  212 ;  protects  the  Protes- 
tants, 213;   Calvin's  letter  to,  213. 

Margaret  of  Parma,,  made  Regent  in 
the  Netherlands,  230;  her  dislike  of 
Alva,  258. 

Margaret,  of  Savoy,  Regent  in  the 
Netherlands,  not  disposed  to  perse- 
cution, 247. 

Maria,  Queen  of  Hungary,  Regent  in 
the  Netherlands,  247. 

Mark,  William  de  la,  heads  the  "sea- 
beggars,"  261. 

Marot,  Clement,  in  Ferrara,  333 ;  his 
version  of  the  Psalms,  219 ;  they  are 
sung  by  martyrs,  221. 

Marsilius  of  Padua,  his  "  Defensor  Pacis, " 
34. 

Martel,  Charles,  defeats  the  Mohamme- 
dans, 19. 

Martin  V.,  his  conduct  after  he  was 
chosen  Pope,  36. 

Martin,  Henri,  on  Zwingli,  125 ;  on  the 
slaughter  of  St.  Bartholomew,  237. 

Martyr,  Peter,  called  to  England,  278 ; 
on  predestination,  286 ;  becomes  a 
Protestant,  335 ;  flies  from  Italy, 
343. 

Mary,  Queen  of  England,  restores  Ca- 
tholicism, 279 ;  her  marriage  with 
Philip  II.,  279;  becomes  unpopular, 
281. 

Mary,  Regent  of  Scotland,  her  course 
towards  the  Protestants,  301 ;  her 
death,  303. 

Mary  de  Medici,  seeks  an  alliance  with 
Spain,  377. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  peril  to  England 
from  her  pretensions,  299 ;  returns  to 
Scotland,  304  ;  her  qualities,  304 ;  her 
policy  respecting  religion,  305 ;  cele- 
brates mass  in  her  chapel,  305 ;  her 
relations  to  Murray,  305 ;  crushes  the 
Earl  of  Huntley,  305 ;  debates  with 
Knox  on  the  obligations  of  a  subject, 
308 ;  holds  another  interview  with 
Knox,  309;  sends  for  him  again,  310; 
her  projected  marriage  with  a  Catho- 
lic Prince,  311  ;  it  is  publicly  opposed 
by  Knox,  311  ;  she  calls  him  to  ac- 
count, 311 ;  cites  Knox  before  the 
privy  council,  312 ;  her  marriage  with 
Darnley,  314;  Elizabeth's  displeasure 
with  it,  314  ;  alarm  of  the  Protestants, 
314;  they  take  up  arms,  314;  she  is 
disgusted  with  her  husband,  315,  316 ; 


escapes  from  Holyrood  to  Dunbar, 
315;  her  attachment  to  Bothwell, 
316 ;  she  visits  Darnley,  317 ;  takes 
him  to  Kirk-of-field,  318;  her  abduc- 
tion by  Bothwell,  318 ;  she  marries 
him,  319 ;  captured  at  Carberry-Hill, 
319;  insulted  by  the  people,  319;  a 
prisoner  in  Lochleven,  319 ;  Melville 
on  her  attachment  to  Bothwell,  319 ; 
did  she  write  the  "casket  letters"? 
319 ;  abdicates  and  appoints  Murray 
regent,  321  ;  escapes  from  Lochleven, 
323 ;  defeated  at  Langside,  323 ;  es- 
capes to  England,  324 ;  the  hope  of 
the  enemies  of  EUzabeth,  325 ;  her 
execution,  325. 

Maryland,  religious  liberty  in,  428. 

Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  how 
planned,  237;  nimaber  killed  in  Paris 
and  elsewhere,  238 ;  joy  in  Rome  and 
Madrid,  238 ;  its  effect  on  the  Hugue- 
nots, 239. 

Massachusetts,  alleged  intolerance  in, 
371. 

Mathesius,  on  the  religious  instruction 
given  to  youth  before  the  Reforma- 
tion, 75. 

Maurice,  Prince  of  Orange,  266 ;  his 
quarrel  with  the  Elector  John  Fred- 
eric, 139 ;  his  character,  139 ;  his  de- 
fection, 139 ;  turns  against  Charles 
v.,  and  why,  145 ;  chases  him  out  of 
Innsbruck,  146. 

Maurus,  Rabanus,  denied  transubstan- 
tiation,  129. 

Maximilian  I.,  his  message  about  Lu- 
ther, 41. 

Maximilian  II.,  inclined  to  Protestant- 
ism, 357. 

Maximilian,  of  Bavaria,  leader  of  the 
Catholic  League,  358. 

Mayenne,  Duke  of,  241. 

Mazarin,  his  policy,  379. 

Meaux,  spirit  of  reform  in,  211. 

Medici,  Julian  and  Lorenzo  de,  plot  for 
their  assassination  37. 

Melancthon,  his  character,  84 ;  Reuch- 
lin's  prophecy  respecting,  85;  his  be- 
lief in  astrolog3%  3 ;  on  the  j^ear  of 
Luther's  birth,  74;  his  doings  at  the 
Diet  of  Augsburg  (1530),  105  ;  cheered 
bj'  Luther,  107  ;  at  the  conference  at 
Marburg,  132  ;  changes  his  opinion  on 
the  Eucharist  and  Predestination,  140  ; 
nis  changed  relations  to  Luther,  140 ; 
his  funeral  address  on  Luther,  142 ; 
his  connection  with  the  Leipsic 
Interim,  144 ;  his  concessions,  144 ; 
offended  by  a  letter  of  Calvin,  179 ; 
Calvin's   affection   for,    214;    opposes 


518 


INDEX 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  Predestination, 
187 ;  on  the  execution  of  Servetus, 
202;  invited  to  Paris  by  Francis  I., 
217;  his  commentary  on  the  Romans, 
389 ;  on  the  spread  of  Protestantism 
in  Italy,  334;  on  the  observance  of 
Sunday,  406. 

Melville,  Andrew,  323. 

Melville,  James,  his  description  of  Knox, 
323. 

Melville,  Sir  James,  on  the  policy  pre- 
scribed to  Mary  of  Scotland,  305 ;  on 
the  abduction  of  Mary,  318;  on  her 
love  for  Bothwell,  319. 

Mendicant  orders,  how  treated  by  Chau- 
cer, 29. 

Menno,  his  influence  on  the  Anabaptists, 
266. 

Mennonites,  their  character,  266. 

Mersenne,  457. 

Methodius,  a  missionary  in  Bohemia, 
154. 

Michelet,  on  Catharine  de  Medici,  237 ; 
on  Richelieu,  379. 

Middle  Ages,  Christianity  of  the,  6  ;  char- 
acterized, 70 ;  character  of  religion,  in 
the,  43. 

Mignet,  on  the  vacillation  of  Francis  I., 
216. 

Millenary  petition,  366. 

Milman,  on  the  anti-hierarchical  spirit 
of  the  early  vernacular  Uterature,  28. 

Militz,  50. 

Miltitz,  his  negotiation  with  Luther,  84. 

Milton,  on  the  slavery  of  the  press  in 
Italy,  443 ;  his  visit  to  Galileo,  444 ; 
on  the  liberty  of  the  press,  444 ;  on 
forbidding  the  mass,  445 ;  on  Armin- 
ius,  445. 

Minorites,  principles  of  the,  34. 

Missions,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  462. 

Mohammedanism,  its  progress  in  Eu- 
rope, 19 ;  checked  by  Charles  Martel, 
19. 

Mohler,  on  Protestantism  and  Rational- 
ism, 5. 

Molanus,  his  correspondence  with  Bos- 
suet,  407. 

Molina,  his  system,  380. 

Monarchy,  its  victory  over  feudalism,  9 ; 
the  watchword  of  the  opponents  of  the 
Papacy  in  the  fourteenth  century,  33  ; 
consolidation  of,  in  Europe  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  36;  Dante's  treatise 
on,  33. 

Monasticism,  opposition  of  Erasmus  to, 
67  ;    origin  of,  67. 

Montaigne,  his  father  on  the  tendency  of 
the  Reformation,  5;  his  skepticism, 
216. 


Montmorenci,  outstripped  by  the  Guises, 
222 ;   one  of  the  Trixmi\nrate,  228. 

Morata,  Professor  at  Ferrara,  333. 

More,  Sir  Thomas  at  Oxford,  65 ;  his 
"Utopia,"  65;    the  execution  of,  277. 

Mornay,  Du  Plessis,  his  disputation  with 
Du  Perron,  243. 

Morone,  on  the  spread  of  Protestantism 
in  Italy,  333 ;   persecution  of,  344. 

Morton,  Earl  of,  317. 

Muhlberg,  battle  of,  143. 

Murray,  conducts  the  government  of  Scot- 
land under  Mary,  306 ;  incurs  the  dis- 
pleasure of  Knox,  312;  takes  up  arms 
on  the  Queen's  marriage,  314;  took 
no  part  in  the  murder  of  Darnley,  317 ; 
Spottiswoode's  opinion  of,  320;  his 
perspicacity  and  firmness,  323  ;  brings 
forward  the  "casket  letters,"  324. 

Mysticism,  the  nature  of,  54 ;  in  Anselm, 
54;   of  Brigonnet  and  his  friends,  211. 

Mystics,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  54 ;  works 
on  the,  54 ;  the  pioneers  of  the  Refor- 
mation, 55. 

Names,  how  rendered  into  Greek  and 
Latin,  85. 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  established,  244;  its 
revocation,  383. 

Naples,  Protestantism  in,  334,  335. 

Nationalism,  rise  and  characteristics  of, 
26 ;  exhibited  by  the  Legists,  30 ; 
opposed  to  Boniface  VIII.,  30. 

Navarre,  Henry  d'Albret,  king  of,  213. 

Navarre,  Anthony  of,  his  opposition  to 
the  Guises,  223 ;  his  character  and 
aims,  223 ;  won  over  to  the  CathoUcs, 
226  ;   his  death,  232. 

Neander,  on  the  Middle  Ages,  8 ;  on  the 
origin  of  the  Episcopate,  13 ;  on  the 
religious  feeling  of  the  German  race, 
73  ;  on  Zwingli,  125  ;  on  the  origin  and 
nature  of  Rationalism,  459. 

Nemours,  Duchess  of,  236. 

Nepotism  of  the  Popes,  37. 

Netherlands,  sects  in,  before  the  Refor- 
mation, 47 ;  thrift  and  intelligence  of 
the,  245 ;  relation  to  the  German 
Empire  (1518),  246;  how  Protestant- 
ism was  introduced  into  the,  246 ; 
persecution  under  Charles  V.,  247; 
number  of  martyrs  under  Charles  V., 
in  the,  248 ;  first  complaints  against 
Philip  II.,  250;  the  inquisition  in  the, 
253 ;  hatred  of  the  Spaniards  in  the, 
254;  iconoclasm  in  the,  257  ;  "Coun- 
cil of  Blood,"  in  the,  259;  submission 
of  the  Catholic  provinces  to  Phillip, 
265 ;  preponderance  of  the  Calvinists 
in  the,  266. 


INDEX 


519 


New  England,  cause  of  its  settlement, 
371. 

Nicholas  I.,  Pope,  his  power,  20. 

Nicholas  V.,  Pope,  his  grant  to  Alphonso, 
King  of  Portugal,  39. 

Nicole,  381. 

Nimeguen,  Treaty  of,  384. 

Nominalism,  its  effect  on  scholasticism, 
60. 

Nordlingen,  battle  of,  364. 

Norfolk,  his  rebellion,  324. 

Norway,  the  Reformation  in,  152. 

Nostradamus,  the  astrologer,  3. 

Nuremberg,  Diet  of  (1522),  presents  one 
hundred  complaints  against  the  See 
of  Rome,  101  ;  Diet  of  (1524),  re- 
mands the  subject  of  the  Worms  de- 
cree to  the  several  princes,  102  ;  Peace 
of (1532),  137. 

Occam,  William  of,  maintains  the  cause 
of  the  civil  authority,  34 ;  his  nomi- 
nalism and  skeptical  philosophy,  34 ; 
his  relation  to  Luther's  doctrine  of 
the  Eucharist,  132. 

Ochino,  becomes  a  Protestant,  335  ;  flies 
from  Italy,  343 ;  a  professor  at  Ox- 
ford, 278  ;  a  Unitarian,  402. 

CEcolampadius,  his  character,  125 ;  on 
the  doctrine  of  Servetus,  197. 

Oldenburg,  Count  of,  150. 

Old  Testament,  character  of  the  religion 
of  the,  12. 

Olivetan,  Peter,  168. 

"Opposants,"  382. 

Oratory  of  Divine  Love,  its  members 
and  spirit,  332. 

Orders,  rise  of  the  mendicant,  25 ;  indi- 
cate a  revival  of  religious  zeal,  337 ; 

Osiander,  275. 

Otho  I.,  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  begins 
with  him,  21. 

Otho  III.,  intervenes  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Papacy,  21. 

Otho  IV.,  excommunicated  by  Inno- 
cent III.,  25. 

Oxenstiern,  363. 

Palestrina,  350. 

Palfrey,  his  history  of  New  England, 
372. 

Pallavicini,  on  Leo  X.,  39. 

Pantheism,  its  relation  to  Deism,  457. 

Papacy,  its  relation  to  the  sacerdotal 
order,  11 ;  its  growth  favored  by  po- 
litical circumstances,  17 ;  its  alliance 
with  the  Franks,  18 ;  its  relation  to 
Charlemagne,  19 ;  how  affected  by 
the  divisions  of  his  empire,  20 ;  ex- 
alted by  the  Pseudo-Isidorian  Decre- 


tals, 20;  period  of  Pornocracy  in  the, 
21 ;  intervention  of  Otho  I.,  Otho  III., 
and  Henry  III.,  in  the  affairs  of  the, 
21 ;  Hildebrand's  idea  of  the,  21 ;  its 
conflict  with  the  Empire,  22 ;  its  ad- 
vantages in  this  conflict,  22 ;  aided  in 
the  conflict  by  divisions  in  Germany, 
23 ;  victory  of  the,  23 ;  culmination 
of  its  power,  24 ;  how  affected  by  the 
rule  of  celibacy,  24 ;  theory  of  the, 
advanced  by  Innocent  III.,  24 ;  nature 
of  its  struggle  with  the  Empire,  26 ; 
benefits  of  the,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  26  ; 
how  treated  by  Dante,  Petrarch,  and 
Boccaccio,  28 ;  reaction  against  the, 
30  ;  decline  of  its  prestige,  32  ;  in  the 
period  of  Babylonian  captivity,  32 ; 
its  aggres!3ions  upon  Germany,  Eng- 
land, and  other  countries,  32 ;  the 
Great  Schism,  32 ;  Galilean  theory  of 
the,  35 ;  spirit  of  the,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  37 ;  secularizing  of  the,  41 ; 
character  of  the,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
42 ;  its  weakness  under  and  after 
Louis  XIV.,  385. 

Parkman,  his  work  on  the  Jesuits  in 
America,  462. 

Parliament,  the  French,  supports  ortho- 
doxy, 209,  211 ;  the  Scottish,  confirms 
the  establishment  of  Protestantism, 
322. 

Parma,  Alexander  of,  in  command  in  the 
Netherlands,  262 ;  the  Catholic  prov- 
inces submit  to  him,  265;  Philip's 
design  to  dismiss  him,  265 ;  his  con- 
test with  Henry  IV.  in  France,  241. 

Paris,  a  seat  of  Catholic  fanaticism,  232. 

Paris,  University  df,  condemns  the 
"Colloquies"  of  Erasmus,  69. 

Pascal,  his  "Provincial  letters, "381,  442. 

Passau,  Treaty  of,  146. 

Patrick,  Bishop,  376. 

Paul,  the  Apostle,  his  Catholic  interpre- 
tation of  Christianity,  12. 

Paul  III.,  Pope,  his  belief  in  astrology,  2 ; 
encourages  Francis  I.  to  aid  the  Prot- 
estants, 41 ;  allied  with  Francis  I. 
against  Charles  V.,  144;  friendly  to 
the  Catholic  reforming  party,  335  ;  his 
Commissions  of  Reform,  335 ;  trans- 
fers the  Council  of  Trent  to  Bologna, 
340. 

Paul  IV.,  his  administration,  349;  his 
treatment  of  Elizabeth,  348 ;  his  rela- 
tions to  Queen  Mary  of  England,  348. 

Paulicians,  45. 

Pavia,  battle  of,  102. 

Pepin,  his  usurpation,  19;  delivers  the 
Papacy,  19. 

Pepys,  his  diary,  374. 


520 


INDEX 


Perrin,  Amy,  186 ;  leads  an  insurrection, 
202. 

Peter,  first  mention  of  him  as  Bishop  of 
Rome,  15. 

Peter  of  Bruys,  47. 

Petersen,  Olaf,  and  Lawrence,  preach 
the  Reformation  in  Sweden,  153. 

Petit,  J.,  425. 

Petrarch,  on  the  Papacy,  28 ;  his  rela- 
tion to  the  revival  of  Learning,  58 ; 
on  the  corruption  of  the  Papacy,  328. 

Pfefferkorn,  64. 

Philip  the  Fair,  his  contest  with  Boni- 
face VIII.,  31 ;  on  the  usurpations  of 
the  clergy,  31 ;  supported  by  his  realm, 
31. 

Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  tries  to 
unite  the  Lutherans  and  the  Swiss, 
132 ;  restores  the  Duke  of  Wiirtem- 
burg,  137 ;  his  double  marriage,  137, 
414 ;  surrenders  himself  to  Charles  V., 
143;  released,  146. 

Philip  II.,  of  Spain,  his  schemes  cause 
alarm  in  France  (1570),  235;  his  rela- 
tions to  the  League  in  France,  241  ; 
his  character,  248 ;  an  implacable 
enemy  of  religious  dissent,  249 ;  his 
unpopularity  in  the  Netherlands,  249  ; 
appoints  Margaret  of  Parma  Regent, 
250 ;  leaves  regiments  in  the  Nether- 
lands, 250 ;  increases  the  number  of 
bishoprics  there,  251 ;  revives  the 
persecuting  edicts  of  Charles  V.,  252 ; 
effect  of  his  persecution  in  the  Nether- 
lands, 255 :  professes  to  mitigate  the 
persecution,  256 ;  his  perfidy,  256 ; 
sends  Alva  to  the  Netherlands,  258; 
condemns  all  the  people  of  the  Nether- 
lands as  heretics,  259 ;  will  not  grant 
toleration,  262;  reply  of  WilHam  of 
Orange  to  his  charges,  263 ;  his  de- 
sign to  dismiss  Parma,  265 ;  discom- 
fiture of,  266 ;  carries  England  into 
war  with  France,  281. 

"Pierce  the  Ploughman's  Crede,"  28. 

Piers'  Ploughman,  the  vision  of,  28. 

Piotrkow,  Diet  of,  161. 

Pisa,  the  Council  of,  36. 

Pius  IV.,  his  character,  348. 

Pius  v.,  his  character  and  policy,  349 ; 
requests  Alva  to  detroy  Geneva,  258. 

PiiLS  IX.,  his  Encyclical  Letter,  437. 

Plymouth,  settlement  at,  371 ;  settled 
by  Separatists,  371 ;  their  agreement 
with  the  Massachusetts  settlers,  371. 

Poggio,  193;   his  character,  331. 

Poissy,  Colloquy  of,  229 ;  Beza's  ap- 
pearance at,  229  ;   result  of  the,  229. 

Poland,  its  condition  before  the  Refor- 
mation, 159;    how  Protestantism  was 


introduced  into,  160;  its  progress  in, 
160;  dissension  of  Protestants  in,  161. 

Pole,  Cardinal,  how  treated  by  the 
Catholic  Reaction,  344 ;  deprived  of 
his  legatine  office,   282. 

Politique?,  rise  of  the  Party  of,  239. 

Political  Economy,  rise  of  the  science  of, 
451. 

Polity,  the  Lutheran,  its  main  features, 
413  ;  the  reformed,  416. 

Pomponatius,  456. 

Popes,  origin  of  their  temporal  king- 
dom, 20;  their  infallibility  asserted, 
25 ;  their  character  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  37 ;  their  relation  to  the 
temporal  power,  424. 

Prisemunire,  statute  of,  passed,  33 ;  re- 
vived by  Henry  VIII.,  273. 

Pragmatic  Sanction,  history  of  the,  40; 
repeal  of  the,  40. 

Prague,  University  of,  declares  for  the 
Utraquists,  155. 

Prayer-Book  of  the  Church  of  England, 
framed,  278. 

Predestination,  Calvin's  doctrine  of,  176  ; 
Zwingli's  view  of,  176;  Calvin's  view 
compared  with  Augustine's,  177;  with 
Luther's,  177 ;  in  the  Lutheran  the- 
ology, 177 ;  views  of  Anglican  re- 
formers on,  286 ;  they  are  not  rigid 
in  the  assertion  of,  288 ;  discussion  of, 
among  tlie  Protestants,  397. 

Presbyterianism,  how  far  legalized  in 
England,  370;  established  in  Scot- 
land, 376 ;  its  form  in  Geneva,  418 ; 
in  France,  419 ;  in  Scotland,  419. 

Presbj'terians,  how  treated  by  Charles 
II.,  373 ;  their  jealousy  of  State  con- 
trol, 419. 

Prescott,  on  William  of  Orange,  264. 

Prierias,  Sylvester,  writes  against  Luther, 
83. 

Priesthood,  idea  of,  connected  with  the 
ministry,  13. 

Professio  Fidei  (Tridentine),  341. 

Protest  at  the  Diet  of  Spires  (1529),  103. 

Protestantism,  its  positive  element,  8 ; 
its  objective  side,  8 ;  its  source  in  the 
Scriptures,  8 ;  a  practical  assertion  of 
private  judgment,  8 ;  rejects  Papal 
and  priestly  authority,  11  ;  charac- 
terized, 44 ;  spread  of  (from  1532), 
137;  from  the  Peace  of  Augsburg 
(1555),  147;  why  its  progress  was 
checked,  351 ;  less  acceptable  in 
Southern  Europe,  354 ;  variations  of 
its  polity,  410;  its  spirit  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  456 ;  its  struggle  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  356 ;  its  in- 
fluence on  liberty,   432;    its  political 


INDEX 


521 


effect  on  Germany,  433 ;  in  England, 
433 ;  in  America,  434 ;  effect  of  the 
suppression  of  it  on  literature  in  Spain, 
438 ;  in  Italy,  439 ;  its  relation  to  the 
fine  arts,  454 ;  spirit  of  progress  in, 
464 ;  multiplying  of  sects  under,  4G0  ; 
in  Italy,  circumstances  favorable  and 
unfavorable  to,  327 ;  forced  to  con- 
ceal itself,  332  ;  a  thing  of  degrees,  332 ; 
its  spread,  333.  See  "Reformation," 
under  the  separate  reformers,  and 
under  the  different  countries. 

Protestant  nations  compared  with  Catho- 
lic, 430. 

Protestants,  origin  of  the  name,  103  ;  do 
not  submit  to  the  action  of  the  Diet 
of  Spires  (1529),  104;  their  number 
in  Spain,  346 ;  their  divisions  aid  the 
Catholic  Reaction,  352;  their  doc- 
trine of  the  Church,  391. 

Provence,  the  bards  of,  28. 

"Provincial  Letters,"  381. 

Provisors,  statute  of,  33. 

Prussia,  its  rise,  385. 

Pseudo-Isidorian  Decretals,  character 
and  effect  of  the,  20. 

Puritan  controversy,  the  merits  of  it, 
297;   Lord  Bacon's  judgment,  297. 

Puritans,  their  origin  and  tenets,  291 ; 
their  objections  to  the  vestments,  292 ; 
their  doctrines  as  expounded  by  Cart- 
wright,  294  ;  under  James  I.,  366,  367  ; 
ejection  of  their  ministers  (1662),  373. 

Rabelais,  the  spirit  of  his  writings,  216. 

Radbert,  129. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  368,  448. 

Ramus,  Peter,  419. 

Ranke,  on  Tycho  Brahe  and  astrology, 
3 ;  on  Leo  X.,  39 ;  his  criticism  of 
Davila,  224 ;  on  the  conspiracy  of 
Amboise,  225 ;  on  the  Orleans  plot, 
226 ;  on  the  slaughter  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew, 237;  on  Henry  IV.  and  the 
Huguenots,  243;  on  the  "casket 
letters"  and  the  murder  of  Darnley, 
320 ;  on  Sarpi  and  Palavicini,  340 ; 
on  the  absence  of  the  spirit  of  propa- 
gandism  among  Protestants,  353. 

Rationalism,  German,  its  two  types,  458  ; 
in  the  Deistic  form,  459 ;  Pantheistic, 
459. 

Ratisbon,  Catholic  alliance  formed  at, 
102;    conference  at,  138. 

Ratramnus,  denied  transubstantiation, 
129. 

Reformation,  long  in  preparation,  1 ; 
agency  of  individuals  in  the,  1 ;  its 
origin  and  nature  a  subject  of  contro- 
versy,  2;    astrological  theory  of  the, 


2  ;  called  by  Leo  X.  a  quarrel  of  monks 
3 ;  not  merely  a  continuance  of  the 
strife  of  popes  and  emperors,  4 ;  not 
merely  a  political  event,  4 ;  Guizot's 
view  of,  4 ;  an  improvement  of  re- 
ligion, 5 ;  regarded  by  some  as  a  step 
towards  Rationalism,  5 ;  a  religious 
event,  7 ;  its  fundamental  character, 
7 ;  a  reaction  of  Christianity  as  Gospel 
against  Christianity  as  law,  7 ;  tends 
to  intellectual  liberty  8 ;  not  an  iso- 
lated phenomenon,  9 ;  age  of  the, 
characterized,  9 ;  twofold  aspect  of 
the,  10 ;  chronological  limits  of  the, 
10;  Bellarmine,  Adrian  VI.,  and  Eras- 
mus, on  the  need  of,  11;  how  it  spread 
from  Germany,  148  ;  allies  itself  with 
democracy  in  the  towns  of  the  Hansa, 
151 ;  forerunners  of  the,  how  classi- 
fied, 44;  causes  and  omens  of  the, 
45  seq. ;  various  influences  in  the  prep- 
aration of  it,  71 ;  could  not  come  from 
Humanism,  115  ;  its  spread  in  Germany 
(1524),  102;  its  influence  on  science 
and  literature,  438  ;  complaints  of  Eras- 
mus, 438  ;  its  effect  on  literature  in  Eng- 
land, 448  ;  in  Germany,  449  ;  its  effect 
on  schools  in  England,  449 ;  in  Ger- 
many, 449  ;  its  benefit  to  Holland,  450 ; 
to  Scotland,  450  ;  political  conse- 
quences of  the,  432 ;  its  effect  on 
religion,  455 ;  its  effect  on  philosophy, 
451. 

Reformers,  Galilean,  held  to  priestly 
authority,  48. 

Reformers,  radical,  49. 

Reforms,  efforts  to  effect,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  35. 

Regency,  German  Council  of,  refuses  to 
crush  Lutheranism,  101. 

Religion,  its  character  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  43 ;  how  affected  by  the  re- 
vival of  learning,  58. 

Renaissance,   the  tone  of  it  in   France, 
216 ;   skepticism  of  the  Italian,  456. 
See  "Revival  of  Learning." 

Republic,  the  Dutch,  rise  of,  261 ;  grows 
strong  under  Maurice,  266.  See 
"Netherlands,"  "William  of  Orange," 
"Philip  II." 

Requesens,  his  policy,  261 ;  successful 
in  the  South,  261;  his  death,  262; 
revolt  of  his  soldiers,  262. 

Reservation,  the  Ecclesiastical,  146 ;  its 
effect,  147,  352 ;  complaints  of  its  vio- 
lation, 358. 

Restitution,  Edict  of,  361. 

Restoration  of  Charles  II.,  how  effected, 
372. 

Reuchlin,    his    religious    character,    63; 


622 


INDEX 


his  contest  with  the  monks,  63 ;  con- 
demned by  the  Sorbonne,  211. 

Revival  of  Learning,  spreads  over  Eu- 
rope, 58  ;  its  consequences  to  reUgion, 
58 ;  produces  the  downfall  of  Scholas- 
ticism, 59 ;  its  effect  on  the  study  of 
the  Scriptures,  61 ;  its  skeptical  char- 
acter in  Italy,  61 ;  its  character  in 
Germany,  63  ;   in  England,  65. 

Revolution,  French,  gradually  prepared, 
1 ;  predicted,  2. 

Reynard  the  Fox,  and  the  brute  epic,  28. 

Reynolds,  Dr.,  at  the  Hampton  Court 
Conference,  367. 

Ricci,  462. 

Richelieu,  motive  of  his  intervention  in 
Germany,  363 ;  gets  the  control  of 
the  war,  364  ;  his  internal  policy,  378  ; 
his  foreign  policy,  379;  his  political 
testament,  379. 

Richter,  on  the  origin  of  the  Episcopate, 
13. 

Ridley,  on  Predestination,  286;  his 
martyrdom,  280. 

Ritter,  J.  I.,  on  the  decline  of  the  Pa- 
pacy, 42  ;  on  Leo  X.,  39. 

Rizzio,  murder  of,  315. 

Robertson,  J.  B.,  5. 

Robinson,  John,  his  principles,  296,  371. 

Rochelle,  its  usefulness  to  the  Hugue- 
nots, 233. 

Rokygana,  157. 

Rome,  city  of,  its  preeminence,  15 ; 
sacked  by  the  imperial  troops,  103. 

Rome,  Empire  of,  effect  of  its  fall  on 
the  Church,  18. 

Rome,  See  of,  grounds  of  its  distinction, 
16 ;  foundation  of  its  primacy  in  the 
East,  16 ;  political  ground  of  the  pri- 
macy of,  14  ;  growth  of  its  power,  17  ; 
favored  by  Roman  emperors,  17  ;  ser- 
vile relations  of,  to  Justinian,  18 ;  the 
bishop  of,  his  primacy,  15 ;  how  built 
up,  15 ;  view  of  Cyprian,  15.  See 
"Papacy,"  and  under  the  separate 
popes. 

Romorantin,  Edict  of,  225. 

Roscoe,  on  the  character  of  Leo  X.,  39. 

Rothe,  on  the  organization  of  the  primi- 
tive Church,  13. 

Rouen,  captured  and  sacked  by  the 
Catholics,   232. 

Roussel,  G.,  takes  refuge  with  Brigonnet, 
211. 

Rudolph  II.,  his  fanaticism,  357. 

Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  his  submission  to 
the  Papacy,  24. 

Ryswick,  Peace  of,  384. 

Sacraments,  Luther's  discussion  of  the,  87. 


Sadolet,  Calvin's  letter  to,  189. 

Saint  Andre,  one  of  the  Triumvirate,  228. 

Sainte  Beuve,  on  infidelity  in  France 
under  Louis  XIV.,  457. 

Sarpi,  Father  Paul,  on  Leo  X.,  39. 

Savonarola,  his  career,  53  ;  works  on,  53. 

Savov,  Dukes  of,  Vidames  of  Geneva, 
182. 

Savoy  Conference,  373. 

Scandinavian  kingdoms,  their  union, 
148 ;   power  of  the  prelates  in,  148. 

Schism,  the  Great  Papal,  34. 

Schleiermacher,  character  of  his  influ- 
ence, 459. 

Schmidt,  on  the  Caltharists,  45. 

Scholasticism,  its  uses,  59 ;  causes  of  its 
downfall,  59,  60. 

Schurff,  Jerome,  96. 

Schwab,  on  Boniface  VIII.,  30. 

Scotland,  its  condition  at  the  Reforma- 
tion, 300 ;  roughness  of  the  nobles, 
299 ;  wealth  and  profligacy  of  its 
clergy,  300;  covetousness  of  the  no- 
bles, 300 ;  need  of  Reformation  in,  300  ; 
attempts  at  reform  in,  300 ;  mar- 
tyrs in,  300 ;  Reformation  legalized 
in,  303 ;  delivered  from  danger  from 
the  Guises,  304;  League  and  Cove- 
nant formed  in  (1638),  369;  under 
Charles  II.,  and  James  II..  376;  bene- 
fit of  the  Reformation  to,  450 ;  Ref- 
ormation in,  connected  with  that  of 
England,  299 ;  Reformation  in,  not 
preceded  by  the  revival  of  letters, 
300 ;  marked  by  hatred  of  the  Pa- 
pacy, 300;  established  by  law,  303. 
See  "Knox,"  "Mary,  Queen  of  Scots," 
"  Protestantism. " 

Scroggs,  Judge,  445. 

Sects,  rise  of  anti-sacerdotal,  45 ;  works 
on  them,  45 ;  anti-sacerdotal,  what 
they  indicate,  47 ;  multiplication  of, 
460 ;  analogous  divisions  in  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  461 ;    bad  effect  of,  461. 

Selden,  369. 

Semler,  relation  of  Rationalism  to,  458, 
460. 

Sendomir,  Synod  of,  162. 

Servetus,  influence  of  his  death  favora- 
ble to  toleration,  195 ;  his  early  his- 
tory and  studies,  197 ;  publishes  his 
book  on  the  Trinity,  197;  as  a  natur- 
alist and  physician,  198 ;  at  Vienne, 
198;  publishes  his  "Restoration  of 
Christianity,"  198;  his  doctrine,  198; 
arraigned  for  heresy  before  a  Roman 
Catholic  tribunal,  198  ;  evidence  against 
him  from  Geneva,  198 ;  escapes  and 
comes  to  Geneva,  199 ;  is  tried,  con- 
victed, and  burned  at  the  stake,  200 ; 


INDEX 


523 


Guizot's  judgment  of,  201 ;  the  execu- 
tion of  generally  approved,  202.  See 
"Calvin." 

Seville,  Protestantism  in,  346. 

Sigismund  I.,  King  of  Poland,  160. 

Sigismund  II.,  King  of  Poland,  friendly 
to  Protestantism,  161. 

Silvester,  Pope,  29. 

Sismondi,  on  Italy  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, 327. 

Sixtus  IV.,  Pope,  his  character  and  aims, 
37 ;  his  doctrine  respecting  the  de- 
liverance of  souls  from  purgatory,  80. 

Sixtus  v.,  his  Index  expurgatorius,  344. 

Skepticism,  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy, 
456  ;  origin  of  modern,  456  ;  in  France 
457 ;   in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  386. 

Smalcald,  League  of,  formed,  136;  ad- 
mission of  the  four  cities  to,  136. 

Smalcaldic  War,  143. 

Smith,  Mrs.  H.  B.,  180. 

Socinianism,  its  principles,  404. 

Socinus,  Faustus,  his  history,  402 ;  his 
influence  in  Poland,  161. 

Socinus,  Lselius,  402 ;  why  treated  with 
forbearance  by  Calvin,  201. 

Somerset,  278  ;  his  invasion  of  Scotland, 
279 ;  suppresses  a  Catholic  rebellion, 
279 ;   brought  to  the  scaffold,  279. 

Sorbonne,  hostile  to  innovations  in  doc- 
trine, 209,  211;  hostile  to  ReuchUn, 
211 ;   it  puts  forth  a  creed,  218; 

Spain,  monarchy,  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, in,  36 ;  fanatical  spirit  of  the 
monarchy  in,  248 ;  the  inquisition  in, 
249 ;  attacked  on  the  seas  by  the 
Dutch,  266  ;  its  desultory  conflict  with 
England,  325  ;  literary  spirit  in,  344  ; 
Protestant  influences  upon,  345  ;  char- 
acter of  Protestantism  in,  346 ;  Prot- 
estantism eradicated  in,  347.  See 
"Literature." 

Spinola,  his  efforts  for  the  reunion  of 
churches,  407. 

Spires,  Diet  at  (1526),  103;  in  1529,  103. 

Spirituals,  or  Fratricelli,  their  character, 
47. 

Spottiswoode,  on  the  abduction  of  Mary, 
318. 

St.  Aldegonde,  255 ;  discusses  tolera- 
tion with  William  of  Orange,  268. 

State,  its  power  in  relation  to  the  Church 
statement  of  the  Augsburg  confes- 
:Aon,  412;  of  Luther,  412;  of  Melanc- 
thon,  412 ;  in  Germany,  415 ;  Zwin- 
gli's  view,  416;  See  "Church  and 
State." 

States  General  of  France,  their  meeting 
at  Orleans,  225. 

Staupitz,  his  counsels  to  Luther,  77. 


St.  Bartholomew,  massacre  of,  was  it 
premeditated,  237. 

St.  Cyran,  381. 

St.  Germain,  edict  of  (1562),  229 ;  Treaty 
of  (1570),  234. 

Stillingfleet,  376. 

Strauss,  D.  F.,  459. 

Stunica,  his  charges  of  heresy  against 
Erasmus,  69. 

St.  Victor,  School  of,  54. 

Sunday,  theory  of  the  Reformers  on  its 
observance,  406. 

Supremacy,  act  of,  under  Henry  VIII., 
274. 

Supremacy,  the  King's,  meaning  at- 
tached to  it  at  first,  274 ;  indirectly 
assailed  by  the  Puritans,  294. 

Sutri,  Synod  of,  21. 

Sweden,  first  preaching  of  Protestant- 
ism in,  153  ;  adopts  the  Reformation, 
153 ;  conduct  of  its  soldiers  in  Ger- 
many, 360;  efforts  of  Jesuits  in,  351 ; 
how  affected  by  the  treaty  of  West- 
phalia, 365  ;   decline  of  its  power,  385. 

Switzerland,  its  condition  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  119;  how  demoralized,  119; 
influence  of  literary  culture  in,  120 ; 
the  Reformation  in,  both  political  and 
religious,  125 ;  catastrophe  of  the 
Reformation  in,  134. 

Taborites,  their  tenets,  155. 

Tacitus,  on  the  religion  of  the  Germans, 
72. 

Taine,  on  the  character  of  the  Germans, 
72 ;  on  the  religious  feeling  of  EUza- 
bethan  writers,  448. 

Tasso,  349,  440. 

Tauler,  John,  his  character,  54;  is 
studied  by  Luther,  55. 

"Territorial  system,"  416. 

Tertullian,  against  persecution,  194. 

Tetzel,  his  sale  of  indulgences,  79 ;  his 
counter-theses,  83. 

Theatins,  their  origin,  337. 

Theology,  Lutheran,  peculiarities  of,  404. 

Theology,  the  Protestant,  its  essential 
principles,  387 ;  its  denial  of  human 
merit,  388 ;  makes  the  Bible  the  rule 
of  faith,  389 ;  its  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  391 ;  its  doctrine  of  a  uni- 
versal priesthood,  395  ;  its  opposition 
to  the  Mass,  penances,  etc.,  396;  to 
invocation  of  Mary  and  the  Saints,  the 
worship  of  images  and  relics,  pilgrim- 
ages, etc.,  396 ;  its  qualitative  con- 
ception of  character,  396. 

Theology,  Roman  Catholic,  its  doctrine 
of  justification,  390;  its  doctrine  of 
the  Church,  392;    its  doctrine  of  the 


524 


INDEX 


Sacraments,  393 ;  its  modification 
after  the  Reformation,  392 ;  its  doc- 
trine of  the  priesthood,  393. 

Theses,  Luther  posts  his,  79  ;  commotion 
excited  by  them,  82 ;  give  joy  to 
Reuchlin,  83 ;  opposed  by  Prierias, 
Tetzel,  and  Eck,  83. 

Thirty  Years'  War,  main  cause  of  its 
miseries,  360;  how  ended,  364;  its 
effect  on  Germanj^,  364. 

Ticknor,  on  the  decline  of  Spanish  lit- 
erature, 438. 

Tillotson,  376. 

Tilly,  his  victories,  360. 

Toleration,  Act  of,  376. 

Torgau,  League  of,  102. 

Torquemada,  342. 

Tosti,  his  hfe  of  Boniface  VIII.,  30. 

Toulouse,  Albigenses  in,  46. 

Tournon,  Cardinal  de,  217. 

Traheron,  Bartholomew,  on  Calvinism  in 
England,  288  ;  on  the  Eucharistic  ques- 
tion in  England,  290. 

Transubstantiation,  the  doctrine  of, 
when  adopted  in  the  Church,  129 ; 
made  an  article  of  faith,  129;  denied 
by  Luther,  87 ;  denied  by  all  the  Re- 
formers,   129. 

Trent,  Council  of,  begins  with  con- 
demning the  Protestant  doctrine,  144. 

Trie,  Guillaume,  198. 

Trinity,  agreement  of  Catholics  and 
Protestants  on  the  doctrine  of  the, 
387. 

Triumvirate,  its  formation  in  France, 
228. 

TuUoch,  on  the  Anglican  Calvinists,  289. 

Tunstal,  Bishop  of  Durham,  275. 

Turks,  the,  dangerous  to  Europe,  94 ; 
they  hinder  Charles  V.  from  attacking 
the  Protestants,  137. 

Tycho  Brahe,  his  faith  in  astrology,  3. 

Tyndale,  his  martyrdom,  271 ;  Frith,  his 
martyrdom,  271. 

Ullmann,  on  the  nature  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, 7. 

Uniformity,  Act  of,  282. 

Unigenitus,  the  Bull,  382;  its  effect  on 
the  French  clergy,  385. 

Union  of  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
efforts  to  procure  it,  405 ;  efforts  of 
Grotius,  406. 

Union,  of  Calvinists  and  Lutherans, 
efforts  to  procure  it,  405. 

Union,   Evangelical,   in  Germany,  358. 

Union,  the  Utrecht,  263. 

Unitarians,  in  Poland,  161 ;  in  Transyl- 
vania, 165.     See  "Socinus,  Faustus. " 

Universities,    strongholds    of    Scholasti- 


cism, 64;  Humanists  admitted  to 
some  of  them,  64;  influence  of  the 
Jesuits  in,  350. 

Urban  VI.,  Pope,  34. 

Urban  VIII.,  441. 

Usher,  Archbishop,  369 ;  a  Calvinist,  289. 

Utraquists,  origin  of  the,  154 ;  they  go 
beyond  Huss,  155 ;  not  subdued,  by 
crusades,  157 ;  are  heard  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Basel,  157  ;  concessions  to  them, 
157 ;  division  of  the,  155 ;  war  be- 
tween the  two  parties  of,  158;  refuse 
to  join  Ferdinand  I.  in  the  Smalcaldic 
War,  159. 

Utrecht,  Peace  of,  384. 

Uytenbogaert,  398. 

Valdez,  Juan,  334. 

Valentinian  III.,  gives  supremacy  in  the 
Church  to  Leo  I.,  18. 

Valla,  Lauren tius,  exposes  the  fiction  of 
Constan tine's  donation,  330. 

Van  Male,  249. 

Vasa,  Gustavus,  establishes  Protestant- 
ism in  Sweden,  153. 

Vassy,  massacre  of,  230 ;  rouses  the  in- 
dignation of  the  Huguenots,  231. 

Vergerio,  flies  from  Italy,  343. 

Venice,  Protestantism  in,  334,  335. 

Vervins,  Treaty  of,  243. 

Vestments,  controversy  on,  291 ;  opin- 
ion of  Jewel  and  other  bishops  on  the 
use  of  them,  292 ;  opinion  of  Burleigh 
and  other  statesmen,  292 ;  advice  of 
the  Swiss  Reformers,  293 ;  statements 
of  Macaulay,  292. 

Villabra,  347. 

Villari,  on  Savonarola,  53. 

Vilmar,  on  the  reception  of  Christianity 
by  the  Germans,  72. 

Vinet,  on  Calvin,  206. 

Visitation,  the  Saxon,  413. 

Voltaire,  385  ;  refers  the  Reformation  to 
a  dispute  of  monks,  3 ;  Erasmus  com- 
pared with,  66;  on  Pascal's  "Provin- 
cial Letters, "  442. 

Waddington,  on  Luther  and  the  Peas- 
ants' War,  117. 

Waldenses,  their  origin  and  tenets,  46 ; 
works  on  the,  47 ;  massacre  of,  in 
Calabria,  343. 

Waldo,  Peter,  46. 

Wallenstein,  his  faith  in  astrology,  3 ; 
his  character,  360;  victories  of,  360; 
removed  from  command,  361 ;  re- 
called, 362;  put  to  death,  and  why, 
364. 

Walter,  on  the  origin  of  the  Episcopate, 
13. 


INDEX 


625 


War,  the  Peasants',  116;  connection  of 
Lutheranism  with,  116;  the  Refor- 
mation not  responsible  for,  118. 

Warburton,  on  Church  and  State,  421. 

War  of  Cappel,  effect  of  it,  181. 

Wars,  civil  in  France,  the  beginning  of, 
231. 

Wartburg,  Luther's  residence  at  the,  98. 

Wesley,  John,  his  theology,  400. 

Wessel,  John,  his  opinions,  52;  Luther 
on,  52. 

Westeras,  Diet  of,  153. 

Westminster  Assembly,  how  composed, 
369  ;  its  work,  370. 

Westphalia,  Peace  of,  365. 

Whitgift,  on  Episcopacy,  285  ;  a  strenu- 
ous Calvinist,  289 ;  contrasted  with 
Hooker,  289. 

Wickhffe,  his  tenets,  49 ;  works  on,  49 ; 
how  protected,  50 ;  a  realist,  60. 

Wickliffites,  when  first  persecuted,  50. 

William  of  Nogaret,  he  assaults  Boniface 
VIII.,  31. 

Wilham  of  Orange,  his  early  history,  250  ; 
his  motives,  252 ;  quells  disturbances 
in  Antwerp,  257 ;  leaves  the  country, 
258 ;  his  efforts  to  deliver  his  countr}', 
259,  261 ;  insists  on  toleration,  268 ; 
his  help  asked  by  Flanders  and  Bra- 
bant, 262 ;  rejects  the  offers  of  Don 
John,  262 ;  reward  offered  for  his  life, 
263;  his  "Apology,"  263;  his  sincer- 
ity, 264 ;  his  prudence,  264 ;  his 
assassination,  265 ;  his  code  of  eccle- 
siastical laws,  269 ;  demands  religious 
liberty,  268. 

William  III.,  his  defense  of  Holland,  384  ; 
acknowledged  as  King  of  England,  by 
Louis  XIV.,  384. 

Williams,  Roger,  372 ;  his  principles, 
427. 

Wiseman,  on  Boniface  VIII.,  30. 

Wittenberg,  University  of,  founded,  64 ; 
fosters  Humanism,  64 ;  Luther  a  Pro- 
fessor at,  77. 

Wolmar,  Melchior,  teaches  Calvin  Greek, 
168. 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  favors  learning,  270; 
his  fall,  273. 

Worcester  House  Declaration  of  Charles 
II.,  372. 


Worms  Concordat,  24. 

Worms,  Diet  of,  95 ;    its  decree  against 

Luther,  97. 
Worship,    order    of,    in    the    Protestant 

churches,  420. 
Wullenweber,  151 ;  his  death,  152. 
Wiirtemberg,   Duke  of,  reestablished   in 

his  possessions,  137. 
Wyat,  his  insurrection,  279. 
Wyttenbach,    Thomas,    his   reformatory 

tendencies,  120. 

Xavier,  St.  Francis,  338,  462. 
Ximenes,     Cardinal,      his      "Polyglot," 
345. 

Yuste,  Charles  V.,  at  the  convent  of, 
249. 

Zacharias,  Pope,  sanctions  the  usurpa- 
tion of  Pepin,  19. 

Z^polya,  John  of,  164. 

Ziska,  leader  of  the  Taborites,  156. 

Zurich,  public  disputation  at  (1523),  123  ; 
adopts  the  Reformation,  124 ;  spread 
of  the  Reformation  from,  125.  See 
"Zwingli." 

Zwingli,  his  birth  and  parentage,  120; 
studies  at  Basel,  Berne,  and  Vienna, 
120;  pastor  at  Glarus,  120;  opposes 
the  pension-system,  121 ;  at  the  battle 
of  Marignano,  121  ;  pastor  at  Einsie- 
deln,  121 ;  preaches  against  the  sale 
of  indulgences,  122 ;  removes  to  Zu- 
rich, 122 ;  his  power  as  a  preacher, 
122;  his  personal  characteristics,  123; 
holds  a  public  disputation  (1523), 
123;  another  disputation,  124;  his 
"Commentary"  etc.,  124;  his  theo- 
logical tenets,  124;  political  element 
in  his  Reformation,  125;  contrasted 
with  Luther,  126  ;  his  patriotism,  127  ; 
broke  with  the  Papacy  after  Luther, 
128 ;  letter  to  him  from  Adrian  VI., 
128 ;  his  pleasantry,  123 ;  his  doc- 
trine of  the  Lord's  Supper,  130;  on 
the  doctrine  of  Servetus,  197 ;  on 
Church  and  State,  416 ;  at  the  Con- 
ference at  Marburg,  132  ;  recommends 
to  the  Protestant  cantons  bold  meas- 
ures, 135  ;   his  death,  136. 


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